


The Life You Live

by WatchTheTigersFly



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Bullying, Childhood Friends, Dan Howell and Phil Lester Are Teenagers, Emotional Manipulation, Friends to Lovers, Growing Up Together, Happy Ending, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, New Year's Eve, Out of Character, Popular Dan Howell, Shapeshifting, Slow Burn, Teen Angst, Teen Romance, Tutoring, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-22
Updated: 2019-09-22
Packaged: 2020-05-16 04:32:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 23,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19310683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WatchTheTigersFly/pseuds/WatchTheTigersFly
Summary: Dan and Phil were best friends. They were inseparable. Until Dan decided they weren't. When they're suddenly back in each other's lives, they have to decide what they mean to each other, but a lot has changed. It doesn't help that Phil seems to be a cat half the time.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, this is my first chaptered fic, hope you like it. If needed, I'll include trigger warnings in the beginning notes of chapters. And please, I beg, no furry jokes.

The Lesters lived a quiet life. They were kind to their neighbors, they attended school functions, they spent their Saturdays at the park. They did everything that any normal family would do.

However, as all cliches go, they were not normal.

They definitely tried to be. Mr. and Mrs. Lester tried to raise their children as if they were the same as the family across the street, but with the strange quirk Mrs. Lester's ancestors passed down, it did occasionally prove to be a struggle.

Phil always knew this. It was an ever-present thought at the back of his head. After all, most mothers couldn't transform into a deer whenever they felt like it, and most older brothers didn't turn into foxes as part of their pranks. The idea of being part of a truly not normal family didn't register in Phil's brain until he was eight. More importantly, until he was a 28-centimeter tall clump of black fur.

The only strange thing about this event was the fact that young Phil could not change back, but he wouldn't realize that was a problem until eight years later. His mother tried to hide her panic. It wasn't unheard of for the children who first shifted forms would have some issues, but for them to be stuck as an animal? It was a strange phenomenon to the Lester Clan.

Phil eventually shifted back into his human form, after a few hours of panicking and frantic phone calls to the few others that had this ability on Mrs. Lester's end. It wasn't really because of any of the tips the others tried to provide, it just happened, but Mrs. Lester decided that it wasn't worth getting grey hairs over if her little boy was alright.

Once he was lectured on the importance of keeping his apparent abilities a secret, Mrs. Lester thought it best to send her son off to play at the park, under the close supervision of her husband. However, Phil was not in much of a playing mood. His mind was still reeling from the information he had just been given. Also, his brother Martyn was at a friend's house, so he had no one to play with.

Phil spent his day on the swing set, simply letting the rhythmic motions of the swing clear his mind as he thought up a silly eight-year-old game that he could play by himself. Thanks to his brother's abandonment, he needed to rethink his game. He barely noticed when the swing next to him was no longer vacant, instead occupied by a wide-eyed, curly-haired boy with a big grin on his face.

The plan was to just ignore the kid until one of them was sick of being on the swings, but apparently, that was not what the boy had in mind. Rather than pushing off the ground to start moving, the brown-haired boy just settled for watching Phil curiously.

Eventually, he let out a small, "Hello."

Phil turned to the boy, confusion evident on his face. 

"Hi," he replied back politely enough, slowing down his swing.

The boy glanced down at his feet, a blush coating his cheeks before he spoke up again. "My name is Daniel. What's your name?"

"Philip. But people call me Phil," he replied, curiosity motivating him to speak. "How old are you?"

Their first conversation carried on as all introductions did for young children. They openly asked each other simple questions out of pure curiosity, eventually learning interesting facts about one another. Phil learned that Daniel had turned eight early that morning and was taken to the park so his family could prepare the house for a small celebration, but he wasn't supposed to know that. 

In return, Phil shared that he was at the park for pure enjoyment, but unfortunately, his brother was with a friend so he was all alone. Daniel brightened up at that, offering to be his playmate for the afternoon. Phil accepted happily enough, beginning to describe the fantasy world he had imagined in his mind as the setting of their game.

In awe, Daniel hung off his every word. His eyes sparkled as he began to supply his own ideas and develop his character. Phil hopped off his swing as they began to immerse themselves into their world of make-believe, running off and playing the role of the evil pirate who had stolen the treasure of Captain Daniel.

Hours later their game was brought to an end. The sun was beginning to set and they were the only kids still at the park. 

"Daniel! It's time to go home, your mother is starting to get worried!" A woman beckoned Daniel over, a phone still pressed to her ear. 

"That's my Aunt," Daniel explained sadly, "I guess I better get going. Bye, Phil!" 

"Bye, Daniel, thanks for playing with me," Phil replied, a smile engulfing his features.

The boy stood up and started descending from the playground they had climbed. As he reached the bottom, Phil looked down and called out, "Happy Birthday, Daniel."

Daniel looked up in surprise, a small smile on his lips. He called out a quick goodbye again before running to his Aunt. The last thing Phil heard was Daniel's Aunt asking about his time at the park.

❁ ❁ ❁

A few weeks later, Phil saw Daniel again.

He was once again on the swings when a blurred figure hopped onto the swing to his left with a muffled exclamation of, "Phil!"

"Daniel!" Phil replied with just as much excitement, once he identified the figure.

A girl around their age walked over cautiously, eyeing Phil curiously. Confused, Phil stared right back, trying to figure out who the girl was.

"Oh," Daniel said once he saw their staring contest, "this is my best friend Louise. Louise, this is Phil. I met him here a few weeks ago." He looked over at Phil intently before adding, “We’re having a playdate and Mum decided to take us to the park! Wait, no, it isn’t a playdate, it’s a _sleepover_ , can you believe it? Louise lives across the street from me and her parents are repainting the walls, so they asked my parents to watch her while—”

Phil giggled at Daniel’s excited rambling, covering his mouth with his hand. He received a glare from Daniel for this before he turned to Louise.

"Would it be ok if Phil played with us? Unless," Daniel added cautiously, turning back to Phil, "you're here with someone else?"

Phil giggled. "No, the only person I could've brought is my brother, and he's making a habit of abandoning me for his cooler, older friends."

Daniel giggled quietly before turning back to Louise and asking, "so, would it be fine if he plays with us?"

Louise was quick to reassure them that it was obviously fine. Daniel smiled widely and relaxed into his swing.

"So, what should we play?" Daniel asked. "Phil is very good at coming up with games, do you have any ideas?" He added, staring intently at Phil.

"We played one game! That isn’t enough for you to go off of." Phil protested, but he started thinking up a game almost immediately.

His eyes wandered, staring up at the sky, the playground, and the large field beyond that. He wasn't sure what he was looking for, but he didn't want to let down Daniel. Strange as it was, the wide-eyed boy he had only spent a few hours with was growing on him pretty quickly.

He eventually looked over at Louise, finally properly looking at her. She seemed like a nice girl. Phil noted her long, brown hair, darker than Daniel's fairly light hair, but not quite black. She had round eyes that were a light green and dainty little silver hoops in her ears. She was smiling kindly at Phil, and he noticed she had a tooth gap.

He looked back over at Daniel. He was wearing a black shirt with a knight in shining armor printed on it with some random pun that Phil didn't care enough to commit to memory. He stared at the silver knight, then glanced back at Louise. With a little imagination, Phil could imagine her with a crown on her head. A grin engulfed his features. Yes, he had come up with an idea.

"What if Daniel and I were knights sent to save a princess? I would be Knight Lester and Daniel would be Knight..."

"Howell," Daniel supplied.

"Knight Howell," Phil continued, "Louise can be the princess the king wants us to save so he may marry her. She lives in a big stone castle." Phil pointed at the tallest slide in the playground.

"That's a nice idea and all," Louise muttered, "but I'm no pretty princess waiting for her happily ever after. I can take care of myself!"

Phil pondered that for a moment before replying. "Alright, how about this? We go up to the tower but there's nothing left but your tiara. You've run away and want to escape to a different country where your true love lives. Daniel and I have to decide if we want to help you or capture you."

Louise smiled at that. "Sounds lovely."

"It's a bit too romantic for my taste, but we can try it," Daniel replied.

The game went on far longer than expected, but they enjoyed it nonetheless. It wasn’t until they heard the insistent calling of Daniel’s mother that they had to stop, quickly ending the game with Knight Lester falling into a pit of lava.

“Daniel dear, it’s time I took you sweeties home for some dinner!”

Daniel groaned in response, shouting back, “five more minutes?”

“You’ve asked for ‘five more minutes’ three times now. We need to go before it gets dark!”

Daniel groaned again before grumpily scooting down the slide, closely followed by a more optimistic Louise and Phil. By the time they reached the sandy grounds, Daniel’s mother had walked over, curiously watching the three children.

“Hello dear,” Daniel’s mother said kindly to Phil.

“Hello, Daniel’s Mum!” He replied cheerily.

“What’s your name?”

“Phil.”

“Alright Phil, we have to get going. Do you have a parent here with you?” Daniel’s mother questioned, voice laced with poorly concealed worry.

“Oh, yes, my Dad, he’s uh—he’s right there!” Phil pointed excitedly at his Dad, who was drifting off with a newspaper draped over his legs.

He waved goodbye and ran over to his Dad, shaking him awake gently. He waved goodbye while Daniel left with Louise and his mother.

“Oh, sorry Philly. Didn’t mean to drift off!” His dad chuckled quietly as he got up and placed a strong yet gentle hand on Phil’s back and led him back to their car.

Phil just smiled in return, feeling pretty tired after his long day. He ended up falling asleep during the drive home, thoughts of the sweet curly haired boy with the big smile floating through his mind.

❁ ❁ ❁

Phil saw Daniel many more times that summer. As school started they saw each other less, but they continued to run into each other on weekends.

Together they played many games and even managed to force Phil’s brother Martyn to play once. One game they were wolves trying to keep their pack together. Another time they were weary travelers that met on a trade route and needed to stop a thief together. 

It wasn’t until the following summer that their parents took a hint and exchanged contact information, and suddenly their annual playground adventures turned into year-round playdates.

However, it all changed when a new group of boys showed up.

Phil, at that point twelve, was kicking a ball around with Daniel on Daniel’s front lawn on a warm spring afternoon. They were just enjoying themselves, not really playing any sport in particular. A group of three boys slowly approached them, ugly smirks etched onto their faces.

“Oh look, it’s posh little _Daniel_ and his friend.” One of them called out. 

Confused, Phil turned around and smiled. They surely didn’t mean it as an insult, right? He knew for a fact that Daniel was a lovely person.

“Hey, Dan!” another called out, “Stop ignoring us!”

Daniel turned around slowly, frowning.

“I’ve told you imbeciles a million times already, I go by Daniel. Don’t call me Dan.”

“Ooh, fancy word,” the first piped up again, “why you so posh, Dan? Still watching Winnie the Pooh? You child.”

They all scoffed and crept closer to Daniel. Phil could only watch as Daniel slowly got angrier and angrier, nearly trembling with anger.

“What’s with your hair? It’s so… Hobbity.” The shortest one, a blond boy farthest from Phil, pulled at Daniel’s hair.

“I forgot to straighten it,” Dan muttered.

“You’re a hobbit and a pansy, Dan. You have that weird gay hair and that weird posh vocabulary and you can’t even play any sports. What are you good at, Dan? Nothing much—”

“Hey!” Phil called out angrily. “Stop it. You must not know Daniel because he’s a great person. So just… stop being mean and leave if you’ve got nothing better to do.” He let out a breath, feeling better for saying something but worse for yelling like that.

The tallest one in the middle scoffed. He stared Phil down, who eventually looked away. “Yeah, ‘s what I thought. Twats.” He muttered the last word before turning away, gesturing for the others to follow.

As soon as they’re out of earshot the two boys turned to each other and began speaking over each other.

“Are you ok—”

“You shouldn’t have—”

Phil shut his mouth and stared at Daniel. He muttered a quick apology and signaled for him to finish talking.

Daniel sighed and turned his head away, a hand pulling at his brown curls. “I appreciate your intentions, Phil. I really do! But...don’t stand up for me. It doesn’t help me the way you seem to think it does.”

Daniel looked back at Phil and stared up into his blue eyes. They were wide open and pleading as if Phil was hurting him.

“I—what?” Phil gasped. “That’s not right. Mum always says to help and support your friends—”

“Well, maybe your mum was wrong, Phil!” Dan said sharply. He turned away and walked over to the ball they were kicking just minutes before and picked it up.

Dumbstruck, Phil just stared as Daniel made his way to the front door of his home. Before opening the door, Daniel turned around. Eyes glazed over, he stared at Phil for a few seconds. “I think...you should get going. Wouldn’t want to miss dinner again, right?”

Phil didn’t get a chance to answer, barely even had time to process everything really, before Daniel went through the door and slammed it shut. Confused, he stumbled over to his red bike that was tipped on the driveway, which he had ridden to Daniel’s house after school. He had invited him over for an afternoon of fun, and it didn’t go at all like planned.

Stuck in a daze, Phil pedaled the ten minutes it took to get to his house and went inside.

❁ ❁ ❁

Daniel never invited Phil over again. Sometimes Phil would invite him over, and he’d accept occasionally, but it never felt right again after that day. Phil asked Daniel a few times if he had done something to upset him, and every time Daniel would look sad and assure him that it wasn’t anything he had done, but never explained beyond that.

They even stopped texting each other. Phil would try to send Dan a funny image he found online, but Dan’s responses were dull and never led to a conversation. So, Phil took a hint. He stopped trying to force conversation. He stopped inviting Dan over.

Eventually, they cut ties and that was it. Phil would only ever see Dan passing by in the halls at school. There was nothing he could do about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapters will be added on the weekends either weekly or biweekly :)


	2. Chapter One: Phil

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as a contacts wearer, I feel like I must say I do not condone putting on contacts after spraying chemicals into them. Don't be like Phil. Don't be an idiot.

An annoying and insistent beeping filled the room, forcing a tired Phil to wake up. He rolled over with a groan, blindly searching for his glasses on his nightstand. Once he successfully got them on his face, he instinctively put his blaring alarm on snooze.

His eyes adjusted to his glasses. He fearfully looked at the time and groaned again. It was 7:00 in the morning, a truly ungodly time. He rolled back over, glasses still on his face, and desperately hoped to catch a few more minutes of sleep. Of course, this could not happen, as his mother had other plans.

“Philip!” She called through the door in an overly cheerful voice, followed by a quick knock. “You better be awake. Wouldn’t want to be late on the first day of school, now.”

“I would like to be so late I miss it completely, actually!” He called back, pulling the pillow on top of his head with another groan.

His mother just laughed and said, “Come down for breakfast, ok? Your brother is leaving today so try not to be too grumpy today, please.”

Phil just let out yet another groan and dragged himself out of bed. He glared at his alarm clock as he set it for the next morning as if it was the inanimate object’s fault he had to go to school. Whatever, it was early, he was allowed to be illogically grumpy.

He pulled the top layer of his messed up blankets over his bed in a lazy cop-out for properly making it. He would just have to hope his mother didn’t go into his room long enough to notice before she left for work. Yes, he was a lazy little shit, and what about it?

He stumbled tiredly into the bathroom to make himself presentable. Brushing his teeth while half asleep was never fun, and using hairspray on his hair to try to replicate a poofy emo style he had become obsessed with over the summer never ended well. It felt like half the hairspray just went straight for his eyes. He popped his contacts onto his poor, watering eyes and rushed down the stairs to the kitchen.

He was in no means excited for school. However, his mother had always made him pancakes on the first day of school ever since he was little. Those pancakes were just so good.

“Thanks, Mum!” Phil said with a small smile once he received his plate of deliciousness. He took a seat at the kitchen table and started eating.

“Huh.”

Phil glanced to his right to locate the source of the sound, where his brother was sitting. His eyes were squinted a little bit and he was studying Phil with an alarming intensity. Phil rolled his eyes and sighed.

“What, Martyn?” He said, not bothering to hide the annoyance that laced his voice.

“I’m not used to it yet. Still can’t tell if I like it.” Martyn replied, slightly dragging out the last few words.

He was referring to Phil’s hair, which Phil had impulsively dyed black one day a couple of weeks before when he was home alone. Well, he was supposed to be alone. Of course, he had to recruit the help of a friend, he was definitely too clumsy to complete such a feat on his own. His parents didn’t seem to mind it too much, it wasn’t like they could say he couldn’t do it once he already did.

“Well, it’s not for _you_ ,” Phil said a bit too defensively as he pulled impulsively at his freshly styled mop of hair.

“Mhmm, I bet it’s to impress some cute girl at school.” Martyn shot back with a cheeky grin.

“Ugh, just go back to uni already,” Phil grumbled. “And stay there.” The hairstyle was definitely _not_ meant to impress a girl.

“Oi, you two behave.” Phil’s mother said. “You’re going to have a great first day,” she gestured to Phil, “and you’re going to have a safe trip back to uni.” She gestured to Martyn. “Now stop bickering like two old ladies!” With that, she left the kitchen, still shaking her head.

“Sorry, Mum,” Martyn said as he got up and put his plate in the dishwasher. “You, don’t go all cat today, ok?” He said as he passed Phil and messed up his hair.

“Hey! It was one time!” Phil protested, swatting away the offending hand.

It was true that he had accidentally changed on a stressful first day of school before, but he was hurt that Martyn would intentionally poke fun at him with such a sensitive subject. He was thirteen when it happened and luckily still at home, but it didn’t make it any less scary for Phil and his parents. Martyn had just used it as new taunting material for the past three years.

“Have fun at school, cat boy.” Martyn snickered.

“Have fun at uni, you dick.” Phil shot back.

“Phil! Language!” Their mother called from the living room, where she had gone to watch some tv before leaving for work.

“Sorry.” Phil quickly put away his now empty plate and went back upstairs, slightly embarrassed to be caught being so childish by his mother.

He got dressed in some black jeans and a yellow plaid shirt and grabbed his bag of new school materials. After saying goodbye to his parents and idiotic brother, he put on some headphones and played some music in hopes of waking himself up more, and started the walk to school.

There was a bus stop near his house, of course. The trip would just be almost half an hour since Phil was on the first stop while the walk to school was just fifteen minutes. Oh, the things he did for an extra few minutes of sleep.

“Yo.”

Phil glanced up and saw his friend PJ sitting on the porch steps of his house. Seven minutes into the walk Phil would pass PJ’s house, and they would walk the rest of the way together, as they did every school day for years. PJ skipped down the steps and ran to the sidewalk.

“Hey,” Phil said with a smile and took out his headphones.

“I’m so tired,” PJ complained. A loud yawn quickly followed.

“How?” Phil laughed. “I mean, same, but did you just wake up or something?”

“I overslept and missed breakfast,” PJ replied with a grumble. On cue, he pulled out an apple from his coat pocket and bit into it.

“You’re nasty, that thing’s covered in lint now.” Phil wrinkled his nose.

“Look, you don’t know how hungry I am. You can’t talk until you’ve felt this kind of hunger.” PJ replied dramatically, waving the apple around.

They spent the remaining few minutes of their walk catching up on their summers as if they didn’t see each other less than a week earlier. They met up with a few of their other friends and hung out at their usual location under the steps to the second floor.

“Phil! Your hair!” One of the girls in the group said in astonishment.

Phil blushed. “Yeah, I dyed it a bit ago. PJ actually helped me out.”

PJ laughed. “Yeah, he just called me one day and was like, ‘hey come over and help me with a project while my parents are out.’ Turns out his ‘project’ was a messy bottle of hair dye.”

The others laughed. Many compliments followed, which Phil received with some embarrassment. They all filled each other in on their summers. One of Phil’s friends went to Greece, which he was eager to hear about, while another worked the summer at their uncle’s store and earned lots of spending cash.

Even PJ did something exciting in between sleepovers with Phil. He had done some lifeguard training and made a new friend who apparently went to their school. Phil had nothing to show for his months of freedom except a video game he had almost finished creating and a new hairstyle.

“The training was hard,” PJ said, “but next year I can start lifeguard duty right away.”

“What did you do, Phil?” Asked one of the guys, who was named Travis.

The warning bell rang, saving Phil from explaining that he was a boring nerd. He took out his crumpled schedule to check the room number and made his way to the English wing for his first class. He was excited as English was his best and favorite class. He hoped he got one of the nice teachers.

Phil walked cautiously into his class, on the lookout for his teacher. He didn’t see one yet, so he just looked for a seat, preferably near the front by the windows.

“Phil!” A female voice exclaimed.

Startled, Phil turned towards the voice. A girl with curled blonde hair and pink dip-dye was sat on top of her desk and was smiling widely at him. She had a tooth gap that was awfully familiar to Phil.

“Louise?” He replied with equal excitement. The two had been close for years, but they rarely saw each other anymore in school and hadn’t met up at all during the summer. Phil walked to her chosen seat, which was in the very center of the room, and gave her a hug.

“Oh my gosh, how are you? I haven’t seen you in ages! We absolutely must catch up. Oh, and nice hair, what a change. It suits you so much!” 

Phil laughed at her rambling. “‘Nice hair?’ I could say the same to you!”

“Oh, this?” She said, a blush forming on her cheeks. “It’s just something new I thought I’d try out.”

“I really like it,” Phil said, and he meant it. The blonde and pink looked really good on her, although he was convinced any color would look good on her.

“Thanks!” She replied with a smile. “So, do you know anyone else in this class? I know a few, but I don’t think I’ve even seen half the kids here before.”

Phil bit his lip lightly as he scanned the room in search of a familiar face or two. There were still some kids visibly missing from the class since the late bell hadn’t gone off yet, but some of them were already spilling in. Phil glanced at the door after searching the present students and saw a group of the more popular kids walk in. There was no one he would know there, of course.

“No, not really--” Phil started to say, but was interrupted by a loud laugh.

Louise looked near the door, then back at Phil. “Oh, no…” Louise muttered worriedly.

Phil followed Louise’s gaze back to the door to see a few more kids walk in and froze. One of those kids was a tall boy with brown hair styled to mirror Phil’s and a mischievous smirk that never seemed to leave his face.

The boy turned towards Phil for a moment before looking back at whichever friend had made him laugh so hard, but he quickly returned his gaze to Phil in a double take. The smirk faded completely from his face.

The two stared at each other in wonder for a few agonizing seconds until someone from the group shook the boy and forced him to pay attention to the conversation again. The bell rang at that moment, pulling Phil’s attention back to Louise.

“Are you going to be ok with him here?” Louise asked quietly.

“Of course!” Phil said too quickly.

“Are you sure?” She asked with concern creeping into her voice. “It’s just that you and him didn’t really end on good--”

“It’s fine!” Phil said insistently, but even he could hear the uncertainty causing a waver in his voice.

He was saved from further conversation as the teacher walked into the room and called for attention from the students.

“Hello everyone! My name is Miss Kelly. For today you can sit wherever you like, I haven’t decided yet if I’ll be doing assigned seating.” She said casually.

Miss Kelly was a fairly young looking teacher with curled dark hair and a gorgeous olive complexion. She wore dark glasses and a blue dress that accentuated her admittedly attractive body. She clearly cared a great deal about her appearance, and it wouldn’t surprise Phil in the slightest if all the other boys in his class would be ogling her by the end of the week.

If he wasn’t still hung up on his interaction with Dan, if it could even be called that, he would be silently celebrating. She was one of the teachers Martyn had mentioned to be nice yet firm in her teaching. To Phil, that was the perfect combination.

He wasn’t silently celebrating, of course. He was too busy thinking of the dark brown eyes of a certain someone that had once been warm and welcoming. Now, they held no sign of the kindness Phil so desperately missed seeing in them.

He took a seat next to Louise, still in a slight daze. He wasn’t sure how he felt about any of it, to be completely honest. He just sat there, still in shock, as Miss Kelly did roll call.

“Tell me after I call your name if there’s a nickname you go by instead. Actual nicknames only please,” Miss Kelly said, peering at the students over her glasses.

Phil waited patiently for his name to be called as the students gave some form of confirmation that they were in class.

“Daniel Howell?” She called out.

“I’m here. And I go by Dan.”

Phil whipped his head to the back of the class where the boy from before was sat. Since when did Daniel go by _Dan_? Luckily, Dan didn’t see Phil staring since he was too busy whispering to his friends and suppressing a laugh.

“Philip Lester?” Miss Kelly called out.

Phil quickly turned back around. “Oh, uh, here,” He said nervously, “and I prefer Phil.”

“Ok, Phil,” She replied with a smile before moving on to the rest of the roll call.

She barely blinked when he requested she call him by his nickname, so why did Dan doing the same thing phase him so much? How could that sixteen-year-old class clown with straightened hair and a whole group of friends be the same boy who used to quote _Winnie the Pooh_ and hated being called anything but Daniel? How could someone change so much in four years that they seem to be a completely different person?

Instead of being able to overanalyze as he tended to do, he had to pay attention as Miss Kelly went over the syllabus and explained that in class on Friday they would be tested on their summer reading assignment.

As the rest of the day went on, Phil accepted syllabus after syllabus almost robotically, his pesky mind continuously reminding him of the moment he had in his first period. It was definitely something no one else would think about, and he was certain that Dan hadn’t given Phil a second thought since that morning.

He couldn’t even properly pay attention to his friends during lunch. Granted, it was just him, PJ, and their friend Amber, since everyone else had lunch during a different time. It definitely didn’t help when Dan walked into the cafeteria all alone, looking small all by himself. Phil watched him look around nervously until he made eye contact with someone and walked over to them. He was smiling, but it wasn’t the arrogant smirk Phil saw earlier that day.

Dan walked over to Louise. It was a bit of a surprise to Phil that the two were still friends, but he assumed it was because they were neighbors. He was pulled back to his own conversation when PJ bumped him with his arm. He followed Phil’s gaze before giving him a bit of a reprimanding look, but he didn’t say anything. That is, until they were walking to their History class together.

“So. I saw you staring at Dan.” PJ said cautiously.

“Hm? Oh, yeah, I was just lost in thought. I didn’t mean to stare at him.” Phil mumbled.

“I don’t really believe you,” PJ stated plainly, “but I trust you to handle it. Just...Please don’t get hurt like last time.”

Phil hated that everyone seemed to be telling him that. He was starting to regret running to PJ when he was twelve to tell him all about how his friend Daniel had cut him out of his life. He was regretting the tears that he spilled over it. He was regretting the guilt he felt, fearing that he must have been the reason their friendship failed.

Once the school day was over, Phil was finally allowed to properly think. Since PJ was hanging out with the mystery friend from the summer and wasn’t walking home with him, he was left to worry about every interaction from that day, but especially the one with Dan. Or really, left to wonder about Dan in general.

Halfway to his house, he got a call from Martyn.

“Hey.” He greeted his brother without any enthusiasm.

“Hey little bro,” Martyn replied. “What’s wrong?”

Their bickering from that morning was long forgotten. They actually cared about each other deeply and could easily tell when something was bothering the other. Yet, as brothers, it was still mandatory that they occasionally made each other’s lives a living Hell.

“Um,” Phil stalled, weighing his options. He could either just brush it off and say he was drained from the first day of school, or he could admit that he was bothered by what had gone down. He chose the latter. He was in need of some sympathy. “Dan’s in my English class.”

“That bitch? Oh, if he hurts you again, you just say the word and I’ll mess up that pretty boy face of his.” Martyn sounded genuinely upset. It warmed Phil’s heart, in a strange way.

“Ok, Martyn,” Phil replied, amused. “So what are you up to?”

“Oh, just hanging out with a friend from uni. He went to take a piss and I saw that it’s time school ended for you and thought I’d check in. Now, back to that little bitch.”

Phil smiled. Martyn had thought of Phil. He took time out of his day to see how Phil was doing. It made him feel important, in a way.

They chatted for a bit until Martyn had to go. “Remember, if he upsets you in any way I can make him think a rabid fox is after him next time I’m there.” He said as his parting words.

“You know Mum would classify that as abusing your power, which is a big no-no,” Phil replied, saying the last part a bit sarcastically.

“Mum doesn’t have to know,” Martyn said darkly. With that, he ended the call.

Phil shook his head. That was just classic Martyn. He was unlocking the front door by the end of the call and stepped inside. He went straight for the kitchen after sliding off his sneakers, grabbing a bowl of dry cereal and sitting down on the couch to watch some tv. If his mother saw him, she would be really upset. Eating while laying down on the couch was also a big no-no. Luckily, she wasn’t around to scold him.

Unfortunately, that meant Phil was alone, left once again to wonder about Dan, and to think about how intensely Dan had looked at him. He couldn’t quite understand why, but Dan was infiltrating all of his thoughts.


	3. Chapter Two: Dan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this story isn't popular or anything but I still feel bad for already falling off of my schedule (I struggled sm with this chapter ugh) bc my pride gets hurt but this chapter is 4.9k so that kinda makes up for it to me lol. Anyways, thank you so much for reading this fic it means a lot to me that anyone would give my writing the time of day! :)

“How are you feeling about that English exam?” Louise asked Dan with a small grin.

Dan waved to his other friends and got into his car, waiting for Louise to get in before replying with, “I’m fucking stressed.”

Louise laughed and turned on Dan’s radio. “Well, I suppose that’s why we’re studying together,” Louise said. “Oh, I love this song!” She exclaimed, finally settling on a station.

Dan tapped his fingers against the wheel to the beat of the song as he waited for the traffic in the parking lot to clear out enough to leave. Once most of the cars in his way were gone, he pulled out and got onto the main road.

“So, I have a question that you won’t like and might not want to answer,” Louise said timidly from her seat next to Dan. Her hands were fidgeting with the hem of the flowy pink dress she chose to wear for the first day back at school.

“Ok, shoot,” Dan replied cautiously.

“What are you going to do about English this year?”

Dan sighed. He wasn’t expecting that question so soon into the school year, but he was also not surprised that Louise brought it up. “I don’t know yet, Lou. We’ve been in school for one day, I have no idea how I’ll be doing this year yet,” Dan replied defensively. He knew Louise meant well, but he was still not over how he nearly failed English the previous year.

Ok,” Louise said. “Just, promise me one thing.”

“What?”

“If you don’t get the grade you’re aiming for on this first exam, please get a tutor as soon as they’re available. I don’t want a repeat of last year,” Louise pleaded. “It hurts me to see you struggle.”

Dan sighed. She was referring to how he only got a tutor halfway through the second semester of that school year. That obviously didn’t help as much as it was supposed to, but that tutor probably saved Dan from actually failing the course. It was just a shame she tried to get in his pants at the end of their sessions. Well, calling it a shame was pretty harsh. He would be lying if he said he denied her.

“Dan?”

“Ok,” he eventually replied.

Louise smiled and started grooving to the music that was playing. “I heard Phil is tutoring in English this year.”

Dan nearly swerved out of the lane out of shock at the mention of that name, receiving a few angry honks from the other drivers. He straightened out and turned to Louise once they got to a red light just a few moments later. “Uh, excuse me?”

“Yeah,” she said, smiling widely with a glint in her eye that Dan definitely did not approve of. “Phil. Philip Lester. You remember him, right? He’s in our English class this year.”

“Of course I remember him,” He muttered. “Ph--He tutored me when we were younger.” How could he forget? Phil was his best friend, once upon a time. He just hadn’t expected Louise to ever bring him up so nonchalantly, considering Dan just refused to speak of him for years.

“Well, as I recall, you had great grades in English when we were younger.” She said slyly.

Dan started driving again once the light finally changed to green. “Louise, just say what you’re getting at,” he said.

“You know exactly what I’m getting at,” Louise shot back.

Dan glanced at her, wondering what her motives were for bringing it up to begin with. “We’re not friends anymore.”

“And whose fault is that?”

“Goddamnit, Louise!” Dan hit the wheel and took a few breaths in a futile attempt to calm himself down.

She shut up after that. She looked a little guilty, probably having realized she definitely struck a nerve. Her eyes stayed staring straight ahead until Dan spoke up again.

Dan sighed. “Sorry.”

“Me too,” she said quietly, finally looking his way, “I shouldn’t have pushed.”

Dan blinked quickly to stop the familiar burning that had started behind his eyes. Dan regretted pushing Phil out of his life. It was one of his biggest regrets. He also knew it was the only way he could survive school.

“It’s just…” Dan said softly, “I--I uh, I felt like I had no choice.”

“You don’t have to tell me--”

“I think I have to. I feel like you deserve to know after all these years, since I wrecked your friendship with Phil and all, at least for a bit anyway.” He chuckled darkly.

“Ok, take your time,” Louise said softly. She didn’t push while he collected his thoughts, just met his worried gaze with a comforting one every time he glanced at her.

“Jack, he uh, well you know Jack. I don’t know why, but he didn’t like that I was friends with Phil. But, I guess he wanted me to be _his_ friend, so he just, like, said I have to drop Phil to be in his group.”

“And just like that, you did,” Louise said rather than asked. There was a slight tension in her voice suggesting that she didn’t approve that she failed to hide.

“Well, you need to understand. He told me he would help with--with the bullying. He basically promised that he and everyone else wouldn’t bug me if I chose him and that crew over Phil. He practically has the entire school body wrapped around his finger.”

“Was Jack really that awful?”

“Was awful and is awful,” Dan scoffed.

“ ...What did Jack do?”

“He just enjoys tormenting me. He knows how to push my buttons, knows what I’m afraid of, it’s like he’s in my fucking mind. I don’t know how he managed to know so much about me, but he uses it against me. At least now it’s less than before. Now it’s manageable. Now he can pass it off as him just treating me like one of the guys.” Dan inhaled a shaky breath. Now that he was talking about it, it was hard to stop. He had to make sure he didn’t say too much yet.

“I’m sorry, Dan. I should’ve noticed. I should’ve done something, anything. I feel like an awful friend.” Louise said with a shaky voice. “This whole time, and I can’t believe I’m admitting this, but this whole time I thought you just suddenly decided to be an ass.”

“You had no way of knowing, we weren’t in the same classes!” Dan replied passionately. He hated making other people feel bad because of him. “I was stupid enough to not say anything then and--and I lost him. I fucked up. That’s all there is to it.”

“You guys were so close. I remember even being jealous for a while because of how much time you spent together.”

“Oh, Lou, you were jealous? How precious,” Dan laughed lightly.

“Oi!” Louise lightly punched him in the arm. “I’m trying to make a point!”

“I know,” Dan replied softly. He reached out his hand and grabbed Louise’s to give it a squeeze. “I don’t mean to make light of it, I’m sorry. I just still don’t know how to deal with it.”

“I should be the one comforting you.”

“I’m fine,” Dan insisted.

He pulled into his driveway and parked the car, but made no move to get out. He sensed that Louise wasn’t letting him off that easy and settled for picking the lint off of his jeans. That was the price he paid for wearing all black so often.

Eventually, Louise turned to Dan and said, “I think you should try to win him back.”

“We’re not a fucking broken up couple!” Dan exclaimed. Louise just gave him a look that he struggled to interpret. “What?”

“Nothing,” Louise said with a sigh. “But you deserve to be happy, and I know Phil made you really happy. You guys were like…well like two peas in a pod and I know that’s really cheesy but I can’t find a better way to put it. You were literally inseparable and knew everything about each other.”

_Not everything_ , Dan couldn’t stop himself from thinking. He just forced a smile at Louise.

“Hey, do you know why Jack doesn’t like Phil so much?” Louise asked curiously. “I mean, he’s a literal beam of sunshine. Everyone seems to like him.”

_You can’t be friends with Phil. He’s fucking gay, and you don’t want him to turn you gay, right?_

“No,” Dan replied uneasily, trying to push the voice in his head to the back of his mind. He chose to ignore that he had replied with the same word and tone that he had replied to Jack with all those years ago.

“Huh. Well, I’ll definitely have to find out then.”

“Louise, please don’t do anything stupid.” Dan pleaded.

Louise gasped and looked at him with an expression of clearly fake betrayal. “I don’t ever do anything stupid!”

“Oh, please,” Dan replied while rolling his eyes. “You literally hunted down some poor girl from the cafe for a whole day just to get her to apologize to Zoe.”

“She called her a bitch! No one calls her a bitch except for me.”

Dan laughed and opened his car door. “Ok. Come on now, we need to go study for that stupid test, I can’t any other day. I’ll be busy with tryouts and--”

“I know, I know, Daniel “I Can Play Sports Now” Howell,” Louise said in a singsong voice.

_We’ll teach you how to play, don’t worry. I’ll undo the damage that fairy did in no time and make you good enough to get you on any sports team you want._

Dan laughed loudly, hoping to drown out the voice in his head. He ignored how it sounded too forced even to him and how Louise gave him a confused look but ultimately said nothing. He locked the run-down car that used to belong to his mom and started to walk across the street to Louise’s house.

❁ ❁ ❁

“Are you staying for dinner, Daniel?”

Dan looked up from his spot on Louise’s bedroom carpet at the kind woman at the door. She was Louise’s grandmother, the nicest lady he had ever met and one of the only people that still called him by his full name.

“Oh, thanks Anne,” He started to say nervously, knowing that if he called her Mrs. Pentland she would go into a long speech about how they were definitely on a first name basis by now. “I wouldn’t want to be a bother--” He started to say nervously, but she cut him off.

“Oh, you know you’re always welcome here! You’re basically family.”

“Well…”

“Ok, it’s settled. You’ll be staying for dinner today.” With that, she left the two kids to their studying.

“Ten years, Dan. Ten years you’ve been coming to my house, hell, even sleeping over, and you still use those awful manners of yours with my family,” Louise said.

“I just don’t want your family to think I’m some fuckboy just taking advantage of their hospitality,” Dan mumbled.

“I mean, you are a fuckb--”

“Ok!” Dan exclaimed, getting up to close the door to save the poor grandmother from hearing more of that. “I get it, can we finish up with the studying, please?”

Louise rolled her eyes but opened up her notebook again silently. Dan just stuck his tongue out at her and continued studying.

“You know I’m right.”

Dan glared at Louise. She had been silent for the five minutes it took Dan to read out the notes he had taken on the last chapter of their summer reading, but she wasn’t the type to drop a topic she felt she needed to discuss.

“That’s subjective,” Dan grumbled, knowing instantly what she was talking about.

“How about we call up Amanda, then? Or, wait. Who was it that you slept with at Rebecca’s party?”

“Louise!” Dan exclaimed, not a doubt in his mind that he was blushing like mad.

“Look, I’m just saying that you should consider getting into a relationship, it’ll do you some good. You and Amanda could’ve had something if you took the time to get to know her, don’t you think?” She raised her eyebrows and frowned slightly at him.

“She only likes me because of Jack and you know that better than anyone,” Dan muttered. “Besides, it’s not as easy as that.”

“Why not?”

Dan didn’t have the heart to tell her that it was not just a one-time thing. He, was in fact, a fuckboy by definition if he really thought about it, even if that word made him cringe. He had been letting one of Jack’s friends shove pretty girls from the other schools in his face all summer. Apparently, when you’re as rich as Jack and his crew, you throw the kind of parties everyone wants to be involved in.

“I was drunk. She was drunk. That was the ‘connection’ you seem to think we had,” Dan said curtly. He was starting to feel frazzled by Louise and her questions and quickly jumped back into his notes. “Anyways, how does the character Jack use the beast to control the other boys?” Dan asked, reading off from the study guide that Louise had pulled up on her computer.

Louise replied with something that was not at all what Dan believed to be the answer, which pushed the idea that he was fucked even deeper into his mind. He already knew he would be needing a tutor if he wanted to survive his English class.

The two continued to study until Louise’s grandmother called the two down for dinner. Louise’s parents were away on a business trip, and while Dan did think they were both lovely, her grandmother always seemed to know what to say when Dan was upset. He had started to depend on her more than his own mother for advice, but he didn’t have the heart to admit that.

“How are you two doing?” She asked eventually.

“Good, we got lots of studying done!” Louise said cheerily.

Dan just nodded in response. He was too nervous about the exam. It was the first of the year and he really did not want to fail when he read and studied and basically worshipped that book for weeks.

“You’ll be fine, sweetie,” Anne said comfortingly to Dan. She reached out across the small circular table and gave his hand a squeeze. “Remember, it’s just one exam. It doesn’t determine your grade for the whole year.”

Dan smiled at Anne. It was a small comfort but it still meant a lot to him. They ate their meals with casual conversation, but Dan stayed mostly silent. He had a lot on his mind, not just his exam.

Soon after helping out with the dishes, he collected his bag and left. It was already 9:00 at night and Dan wanted to get to bed at a reasonable hour so he wasn’t dead on his feet for tryouts the following day.

He also just really needed to be alone. He may have tricked Louise, but he wasn’t as nervous about the exam as he made himself out to be. He was terrified of course, but he was more shaken about the events that had happened earlier. He hated how he had let something so stupid effect him as much as it was, but he was caught by surprise.

The way Phil had stared at him early that morning left him unnerved. His expression was a confusing mix of hurt and surprise, and Dan hoped he wasn’t the cause of the hurt. However, he also knew that he definitely was.

There was also the jarring change in Phil’s appearance. For one, he wasn’t wearing glasses. While Dan always liked them, Phil insisted it made him look like a dork, so it was no surprise that sometime during the four years they weren’t in each other’s lives he had seemingly switched to contacts.

There was also his jet black hair. It was quite different from the mousy brown Dan was used to, and _holy shit_ , it looked good on him. It was all ruffled and nearly covered one of his eyes, and it made Dan’s heart pound.

Only because that was how Dan dreamed he could have his hair, he tried to convince himself. That was all. He was jealous that Phil could pull off the fringe so effortlessly, while Dan had to spend way too much time straightening his stubbornly curly hair just for it to lie too flat on his head.

He tugged at said curly locks, having just stepped out of the shower, already dreading having to wake up to straighten the wet mop of hair. He wondered how much time Phil spent on his hair, but quickly pushed those thoughts out because it was definitely not healthy to think so much about a boy that had to stay out of his life.

Once he was in bed, he couldn’t sleep. He kept tossing and turning, but he was wide awake. He couldn’t do anything really, he didn’t want to risk waking up his younger brother, whose bedroom was just on the other side of the wall that Dan’s bed was pushed up against.

Dan squinted at the painfully bright red numbers on his alarm clock. It was 10:40, meaning he had been struggling to sleep for over half an hour. His eyes traveled to the ground, which was a mess of clothes. On the floor by the foot of his bed was his laptop. It was definitely a hazard since Dan was clumsy and could step on it, either breaking his laptop or slipping on the sleek case and falling on his ass. He sighed and gave in, leaning over the side of the bed and picking it up, grunting loudly as he pulled himself back on the bed.

He scooted back so his back was flush with the headboard and opened up the laptop, screwing his eyes shut for a few seconds when a bright light filled his room. It would just be for fifteen minutes, he told himself. He would check his email or play Runescape for a bit and go to bed.

That really was his plan, he just wanted to tire out his overactive brain, but that’s not what happened. Almost as if in a trance, his hand moved up across the trackpad, moving the cursor to hover over his photos app. He clicked it, pulling up his photos that were meticulously sorted into albums.

On the bottom right was an album called “phil <3” that he had made many years ago when he had first sorted all of his photos. He hadn’t forgotten about it, but he had definitely tried very hard to do so. He should’ve deleted those photos by now, but he couldn’t bring himself to erase four years of memories stored in an album of 235 photos.

Dan snorted under his breath. Phil had always loved taking too many photos on the crappy laptop he owned, which was why there were so many. Dan already knew without even opening it that it would be mostly slightly pixelated Photo Booth photos that Phil had emailed Dan when they were younger.

He knew the action would be incredibly masochistic, but he opened the album anyways. He was greeted with their last photos first, so he scrolled to the bottom and waited for them to load. He took in a sharp breath once they did. He was not expecting to be attacked with so much so fast, which was stupid considering he had just opened an album pretty much dedicated to Phil.

The first few photos had been taken with an almost high-quality camera. About the first eight photos were from the same day. There was Dan, Louise, Phil, Phil’s brother Martyn, and a kid named PJ that Dan vaguely remembered being one of Phil’s friends. They were in Phil’s backyard celebrating the last day of summer before they were forced to go back to school. It was just a couple months after Dan had met Phil.

They all looked so happy and carefree, except for Martyn, who looked annoyed to be forced to take a photo with a bunch of kids two years younger than him. Dan smiled sadly. He remembered how Martyn had been pretty pissed to be included in the photo, saying he would rather go hang out with his friends that were inside waiting for him. In the other photos, they were running around as slightly blurry figures or eating ice cream as the sun slowly got lower and lower in the photos.

Phil had emailed the photos to him two years later, with nothing but the caption, “remember these?” Dan had definitely remembered. That was how their email relationship started. Phil had convinced Dan to secretly make an email so they could communicate outside of phone calls on the home phone, which were almost definitely monitored by at least one parent. Even though they weren’t discussing anything bad, they still wanted some privacy, as most preteens did. A week later, Phil sent him that email, and Dan stayed glued to the home computer on weekends and holidays when he wasn’t hanging out with Phil.

Dan could only imagine the chaos if he had his laptop back then. He definitely would’ve stayed in his room all day, so he supposed it was good that he didn’t receive the laptop until he was fourteen. At fourteen, Dan was messaging his “friend” Jack and that friend group, which mostly just chatted about the hot girls that went to their school and what the others wanted to do to them. Dan had never really been interested in any of the girls in that way, but he just assumed he would when he was older.

Sixteen-year-old Dan was very doubtful of that. All of the girls that he knew through Jack wore too much makeup and acted really slutty, and once they had any amount of alcohol in them, suddenly the basement parties turned into stripper shows. He wasn’t trying to shame those girls, they just weren’t his type, and he just couldn’t see himself being in a serious relationship with any of them. He assumed he would find a girl that was more on his wavelength once he left for university. Until then, he would deal with the girls he had available to him. After all, they were really good at sex, and he didn’t need to have real feelings for drunk sex to still be amazing. He could deal with real relationships when he was older.

Dan scrolled through the photos until he reached the top. By this point in the timeline, they were around twelve and stupid. Very, very stupid. Some of the last photos were from a truth or dare style game that Louise had roped them into when she and Dan had gone over to Phil’s house during a winter afternoon. It was more like dare or dare since it was more about the chosen person doing something ridiculous as chosen by someone else or forfeiting by choosing a slip of paper from a bowl and having to do what it said instead. It was definitely a strange game that had no structure whatsoever, but it was still enjoyable to the others in a twisted way when someone had to do something gross or embarrassing.

Dan had to slap a hand over his mouth to muffle his giggles when he found a series of photos of Louise eating a tablespoonful of some unpleasant looking substance. The photos captured her fear before she ate it, her regret as she tried to swallow whatever had been on the spoon, and lastly her anger and disgust as she hit a laughing Phil over the head with a couch cushion. Dan was in the left corner during all of these photos staring at the screen and laughing, having been the one to capture the photos on Phil’s laptop.

There was another series of photos taken by Louise, Dan assumed, since she was the only one not in them, except for her arm seen in the bottom left corner of the screen. In one, Dan himself was gawking at Phil, then he was reaching into the bowl of forfeit dares in front of him, then he was blushing like mad as Phil laughed.

Dan instantly remembered what the forfeit dare had been. He couldn’t remember what dare from Phil was so bad that he really did end up going with the forfeit, but the next photo was of Dan leaning over to Phil, who was trying to fight a smile off his face, and the last was of Dan kissing Phil’s cheek, who had gone visibly red, even in the photo.

Dan had been smiling slightly throughout his trip down memory lane, but it slowly melted off his face as he stared at that last photo of him kissing Phil. It had left him giddy at the time, and seeing Phil blush like mad had made him laugh. At the time, he had assumed it was because Phil had never been kissed, but now he wasn’t so sure. Especially since Jack had started bugging him just a few months after the photos were taken.

He remembered the day Jack showed up on his lawn when Phil was over. At that point, Jack had been bothering him for a few weeks, and Dan was slowly starting to give in. It was hard, and when it felt like almost everyone in his school was against him, having someone who was also an ass to him offer him a way out was too tempting.

When they had shown up, Dan had made his choice. He had seen the anger in Jack’s eyes and instantly chose his own safety over his best friend of four years. Just like that, he had kicked Phil out of his life. When they had left thanks to Phil’s few protective words, Dan felt like he would cry because he had already chosen. He tried to convince himself it was fine. After all, what was one person?

It was so hard, and after Phil left, Dan had gone inside and broke down sobbing right in front of the door he had just closed. His younger brother must have seen and gotten their mother because just a few moments later, he was pulled into a warm hug. He refused to give his mother any answers, and after a while of trying to get him to talk, she gave up and just let him cry it out.

He could’ve just apologized to Phil and lied when Jack asked him later that week about it, but he was desperate and stupid and really needed that layer of protection. He always assumed it was because Jack was a rich kid who would become even more of a prick, so when Dan denied him, he turned against him.

Once Dan gave in, he acted like they were buddies. Dan still regretted what he did to Phil, but what else could he have done? Let himself get beat up for the rest of his childhood? He always wondered if Jack would’ve eventually lost interest if he had just been strong enough to deal with it, but there was nothing he could do now. He couldn’t just leave the group now, it had been far too long and Dan had no one else to turn to except Louise. It just wasn’t enough.

Suddenly, a loud thump from outside echoed through his room, startling Dan. He got up and looked out his open window to see that his mom’s car was in their driveway, the sound having been her closing the car door. Dan frowned, wondering how could she be back already. Her late shift wasn’t supposed to end until really late at night.

Dan crawled back into bed and looked at his clock. It was nearly midnight, which meant he had been up for far more than fifteen minutes. He was supposed to be up in less than seven hours. He suppressed a groan and quickly turned off and put away his laptop, rolling over and willing himself to fall asleep quickly.

A few minutes later, his door opened and his mother walked in. His eyes were already closed, but he could tell it was her because of how her quiet footsteps walked across his room and closed his window. Dan only then noticed that it had started to get cold in his room. Once she left, he relaxed his body. He didn’t want her to know that he had been awake since he knew she would worry far more than she needed to.

Dan was tired, he could feel it in the weight of his eyelids. Not just because he had been up for far too long after his first early morning in months staring at photos from a time he knew he could never return to. He was tired of making sacrifices for annoying pricks who liked to control Dan like a puppet. He had given up so much for Jack to be happy with him, Dan realized, but he never really was. There were always subtle jokes and Jack often went too far, which left Dan hurt and struggling to figure out why Jack demanded that he turn into someone he was not.

Eventually, Dan drifted off to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This feels dry to me but it also offers some much needed information on Dan's life. I hope him suddenly having the revelation is believable, I wanted to make seeing Phil be his trigger since seeing him would suddenly resurface memories but please let me know if it isn't! I mean, at this point I'm not changing it, but it would be nice to know moving forward. I'm pushing for the next chapter to be ready by next weekend.


	4. Chapter Three: Phil

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry, this is 8.8 k, I just couldn't stop writing. Editing this was NOT fun, but luckily I have a wonderful friend willing to proofread for me :). I don't know how or why, but I just nearly doubled the story length with this chapter but a lot happens here so I hope it isn't too boring!!
> 
> TW// underage drinking and they get like reallllly drunk, and at the very end after the asterisks, there is throwing up, but it's mostly implied.

Phil fell back onto PJ’s bed with a groan. It was finally Friday. It was finally the end of his first week back at school, and he felt like his soul had been ripped out of his body. He was excited to have a sleepover with PJ and just play video games, watch awful movies, and raid the kitchen to eat way too much of everything. Really, it was Phil’s ideal evening. It was perfect after a headache-inducing Friday.

“How was the English exam?” PJ asked, falling onto his bed and wrapping himself up in the galaxy print blanket that was laid out on top of his duvet.

“It was good,” Phil replied nonchalantly. “I actually think I did really well.”

PJ laughed. “Of course you did, you’re Phil.”

“What about you? How was your exam?” Phil asked PJ, rolling onto his stomach to make eye contact.

“Eh, I think I’m fine,” he replied.

Phil and PJ had both taken their English exams that day, as they had the same teacher, just during different periods. They had studied a little together the previous day, but both tended to do well in the class thanks to their mutual appreciation for literature and storytelling.

“Do you want to play Mario Kart—” Phil started to ask, but was interrupted by the beeping of a notification from PJ’s phone, which was discarded on his nightstand.

“Sorry, one second,” PJ said, rolling over to the nightstand. As his hand reached out to pick up the phone, another notification came through, then another just seconds later. “Err, sorry, it’s…” PJ trailed off. He smiled down at the phone but quickly put it down.

“Who’s so eager to reach you?” Phil jokingly asked.

“It’s just a friend, it can wait, they just want to talk but I’ll call tomorrow—” PJ said quickly, but another noise came from the phone, this time long and insistent, signaling that someone was trying to call PJ.

“Sounds like your _friend_ doesn’t like being ignored,” Phil said with a small smile.

“Wait, just let me cancel the call and send a quick text,” PJ said as he started furiously typing.

“PJ, it’s fine.”

PJ looked up mid-text with a confused expression. “What?”

“Just take the call, we have all day. I’ll just go set up the game downstairs,” Phil insisted.

“Oh, thanks,” PJ said. There was a noticeable blush creeping up his face. “I’ll just be a second, sorry,” he said, but he was already rushing out of the room and redialing the number that had been trying to reach him.

Phil just rolled his eyes fondly and got off of the bed to go set up their game. PJ had gone into his parents’ bedroom to take the call, and as Phil passed the door, he saw PJ smiling widely as he listened intently to whoever was on the other end of the call. Phil couldn’t help but smile as well as he went down the stairs, two at a time. He wasn’t the jealous type, and he knew him and PJ were pretty solid. He was, however, a very curious person and wondered who it could be that PJ was talking to that he wouldn’t give a name.

Phil padded through the hall into the living room and sat down on his socked feet in front of the TV. He opened up a plastic box that rested next to the TV stand and sorted through the many games that PJ had invested in throughout his life. Once he located the one he was looking for, he pulled it out with triumph and popped open the colorful plastic case.

Just as he was turning on the TV, PJ appeared in the living room with two bowls. He set them down on the coffee table and plopped himself down onto the couch. Phil grabbed two controllers and the remote before joining him.

“Pretzels and Haribo? Great choices,” Phil commented as he handed PJ his controller. “So, how was your...chat?”

PJ blushed again immediately, which was answer enough for Phil. “Good. Fine,” he mumbled.

Phil quickly set up his character and vehicle before setting down his controller and turning so he could stare directly at PJ as he finished setting up his. “That’s good,” he said in an overly sweet voice.

“Yeah, we just—Phil stop staring at me like that!” PJ exclaimed once he noticed Phil staring at him intensely. “Fine,” he said with a defeated sigh. “Her name is Sophie.”

Phil did a small victory dance and let out a small “yay!” with glee. “I _knew_ this was about a girl.”

“Wipe that grin off your face it’s not like that!” PJ frowned disapprovingly in response to Phil’s knowing look and a smug grin. “Ok, ok. It’s a little like that. I tell you this and then we go straight into Mario Kart so I can kick your ass.”

“Ok,” Phil said and nodded eagerly. “Now, spill.”

“God, you sound like a gossip-hungry twelve-year-old girl,” PJ grumbled. “That guy that I mentioned the other day that I met during lifeguard training? His name is Chris and he’s friends with these girls at a rival school and, well, he introduced me to one of them and we hit it off.”

“Sophie,” Phil said wisely.

“Yeah, Sophie. She lives like forty-five minutes away though so we agreed to call each other today to, like, hear each other’s voices and—”

“Aw, that’s adorable!” Phil squealed, lightly punching PJ in the arm with each word for emphasis.

“Shut up! Anyway, I kind of forgot that was today but I’ll see her soon—I’ll tell you more after I drag you through the dirt. You better square up, Lester!”

Phil stuffed a handful of the gummy bears into his mouth and quickly grabbed his controller. He had enough information for the time being, but he had to make sure he paid attention to the game. “In your dreams, Liguori,” Phil said around his mouthful of gummy bears.

PJ pulled a disgusted face at him that turned into a small fit of laughter as he clicked through the tracks. Phil leaned forward in preparation as the countdown began, controller clutched tightly in his hands, and then they were off. The race ended up being close, but Phil won the round. His victory was short-lived, however, because he lost the next two rounds.

“That’s two to one, I win!” PJ cheered.

Phil fell back into the cushions with a cry of defeat while he clutched the bowl of gummy bears. He stared at the spinning trophy on the screen with contempt. Sure, he won the first one but seeing two trophies for PJ in a row hurt his competitive ego. “I have a suggestion,” Phil said.

“I swear to God, Phil if you say all or nothing—”

“All or nothing!” Phil said in a deep and dramatic voice.

“Phil, that’s not how it works. You can’t just say all or nothing every single time you lose and take fake victory for accidentally winning one more time, that’s not even what that phrase means—”

“All or nothing!” Phil repeated. “Please Peej, please?” He did puppy eyes and whined for good measure.

PJ looked at him, then the screen, then back at Phil. He was clearly torn. “Fine, but deep down we both know winning this round doesn’t actually make you win, it would put us at a _tie_ and saying whatever before this round doesn’t give it a special deciding factor.”

Phil cheered and went to pull up another game. Three races later, and Phil finally won another round.

“I win!”

“We’re tied,” PJ grumbled.

“No, all or nothing means I win!” Phil got up and did a victory dance around the room while cheering.

“That’s such a stupid concept that doesn’t even make sense!”

“It’s a stupid concept that you agreed to, so it doesn’t matter if you think it makes sense now. You’re just being a sore loser.”

“I’m being a sore loser?” PJ squawked. “You’re a sore winner!” He grabbed a red gummy bear and threw it across the room at Phil.

It bounced off of Phil’s chest and fell to the ground. Phil quickly leaned down to scoop it off of the wooden floor and popped it into his mouth. “Yum,” he said with a smirk.

“You’re awful,” PJ grumbled. “Come on, I want some real food.” He stood up and muted the TV, then turned and walked back into the kitchen.

Phil grabbed the two nearly empty bowls and stacked them together, gummy bears on top so he could continue to snack on what was left in the plastic bowl.

“Are you going to cook for me?”

“Only if you want me to burn down the house,” PJ said with a grin. He was already sifting through the takeout menus that he had taken down from the top of the fridge. “My parents left me some money so we could buy pizza until they return,” PJ explained. He held up the folded menu to the pizza place they both loved.

“Yeah, that’s a lot better than whatever sad sandwich you probably would’ve made me,” Phil replied.

He took the menu from PJ and spread it out on the countertop. Once they chose a pizza, PJ called to place their order and they went back into the living room to watch a movie. It wasn’t until the pizza arrived and they were sprawled out on the couch eating the large slices that PJ mentioned the phone call again.

“We’re friends, right?” PJ asked slowly.

“Yeah…” Phil replied cautiously.

“Friends do each other favors,” PJ continued.

“Peej?” Phil asked with suspicion.

“Ok, just hear me out. Chris just texted me confirming that there’s a party with kids from other schools attending. It’s today. It’s close. You’d know the address I think.”

“Peej,” Phil repeated. “Since when do you want to go to parties? It’s just going to be a bunch of strangers getting drunk and gyrating in the basement and people hooking up around every corner.”

“I really want to go but I can’t just leave you here, and frankly I’m too nervous to go alone. Sophie will be there. That’s what...that’s what I wanted Chris to confirm for me.”

Phil looked at PJ, who was fidgeting with his hands nervously. “Fine, but you owe me big time,” Phil grumbled eventually.

“Wait, what? Really? Wow, that was easier than I thought. You’re the best!” PJ said with relief lacing his voice.

“Yeah, I know,” Phil groaned. “Ok, when is it? We probably need to get ready soon then.”

“Well, Chris said he’d be there around ten, so really whenever we can sneak out.”

“Wh—PJ! Sneak out?” Phil exclaimed.

“Well, it’s not like we can just stroll through the living room in the middle of the night like ‘see you later, just going to a party where there’s alcohol and drugs and sex!’ My parents would freak out and probably call yours.” PJ looked at Phil apologetically. “I know it’s a lot to ask, but I have an idea of how to get out and back in undetected,” PJ said.

“What’s your idea?”

It turned out that PJ’s idea was to wait until bedtime and sneak out through the window, leave it propped open, and sneak back in through the same window. Phil wasn’t that impressed with the idea, but he just sighed and agreed. PJ wasn’t usually stupid, so Phil chose to just trust him.

PJ’s parents returned soon after they finished the pizza. They took turns showering, and once Phil’s hair air-dried, he styled it again to his liking and waited for PJ to tell his parents that they were off to bed.

“We’re in the clear. I told them we’d finish up a movie on my laptop and go straight to bed so they shouldn’t check in on us,” PJ said quietly. “They’re going to bed soon too. Long day I guess.”

Phil looked at the time. It was almost 10 pm, which was early for two teenagers to be going to bed, but it was also the weekend of their first week back in school. He hoped that it was believable. Phil turned to PJ, who was fluffing up their pillows.

“PJ? What are you doing?”

PJ turned around and grabbed a hoodie from the floor. “I’m trying to make it look like we’re in bed, in case they do check,” he replied like it should’ve been obvious.

“PJ, what the fuck? That’s so pointless, don’t worry about it.”

PJ just rolled his eyes at Phil and finished making two vaguely human-looking lumps under the blanket. He looked at Phil once he was done, gave his shirt a disapproving look, then turned to his closet and pulled out a dark shirt that he threw at Phil.

“Uh…” Phil looked at PJ questioningly, the shirt he had caught clutched in his hand.

“Trust me, the crowd we’re about to walk into will not appreciate plaid short-sleeve shirts as much as you do,” PJ answered the silent question quickly.

Phil just shrugged and pulled off his shirt to put on the new one. He looked in the mirror to look at himself. The shirt itself was just a simple black Radiohead t-shirt with a yellow design. He had to admit, he didn’t look too bad in all black, but with his black hair, he felt it made him look like an emo wannabe vampire.

PJ led him down to the dining room that rarely got used. It was on the opposite side of the kitchen, so the window looked out on the backyard. PJ slowly opened it to avoid making too much noise and slipped out. Phil followed in a much less graceful manner and stumbled onto the patio. He stepped back as PJ closed the window until it was open just an inch. Phil turned to walk towards the gate, but PJ quickly tugged him back by the arm.

“We have to go around the perimeter to the other gate,” PJ whispered. “If we go that way, we’ll trigger the light. There’s a motion sensor.”

Phil held in a groan but followed PJ anyway. Phil kept glancing at the window that he knew belonged to PJ’s parent’s bedroom, but luckily, it stayed dark. They made it to the other gate and slipped out, but it wasn’t until they ran to the end of PJ’s street that he finally felt like he could breathe.

PJ laughed. “Kinda thrilling, don’t you think?”

“My heart is beating so fast,” Phil said with a wide smile. He wasn’t mad at all. It was actually a little thrilling. Phil hadn’t snuck out in ages, and definitely never to go to a party.

“Ok, come on, it’s this way,” PJ said as he went down a road Phil rarely traveled down.

There was something familiar about the roads that they were walking down. Phil knew that he’d gone down them before, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. About five minutes later, it hit him. They had turned down a road that was very familiar to Phil. He used to ride his bike there a lot. If they made a left where they soon made a right, they would’ve been on Dan’s road.

That didn’t bother Phil, though. He had no problem with that. Dan was an old friend, there was no reason for him to be so sensitive about it. Instead of bringing up the concerns he was failing to squash, he just asked PJ, “How do you know the way to wherever we’re going?”

“I looked it up on Google and just memorized it. It’s not that many turns, I already know this area of the neighborhood pretty well, Chris lives around here, pretty close to Dan actually.” PJ suddenly glanced at Phil, eyes wide, as if he had just remembered that Phil would be even more familiar with the area.

“Stop treating me like I’m made of glass,” Phil said harshly. “I get that you’re worried about me or whatever, but I’m fine. Everything’s fine, literally nothing has happened. This whole week people have been acting like I’m about to break down sobbing and it’s super annoying.” Phil turned back to see that PJ had stopped walking. He took a few steps back towards him. “Why’d you stop?”

“I, uh, I just remembered that Dan will be there,” PJ said sheepishly.

“What?” A feeling of dread settled in Phil’s gut. Not that he was worried, of course not.

“He’s friends with Chris. I forgot to mention it before, it completely slipped my mind. I’m sorry Phil, we can go back. I understand if it’s all too much.” PJ looked at him with concern.

“Let’s go,” Phil said, not waiting to make sure PJ was joining him. “I’m not five. So what if we got in a tiff? It’s been years and I’ve moved on, and clearly so has Dan seeing as he hasn’t even bothered to acknowledge that we’re in the same class, never even saying hello, basically acting like I don’t even exist—” Phil stopped talking, mentally slapping himself for how heated he let his words get. “It’s whatever. I can handle myself.”

PJ just nodded slowly, but Phil didn’t miss the worried glances PJ kept sending his way for the remainder of their walk. Phil was starting to feel properly angry, which he hated himself for almost instantly. He could never be mad at PJ, who was there for him whenever he felt like he might break. They reached the front door, and Phil could hear the bass from the music somewhere within the house already.

“Phil,” PJ said softly. “I know you can handle yourself, but what happened in the past with Dan, it really messed you up for a while. I know you say you’re fine, but I’m not blind. I know that being near him makes you uncomfortable. If you see him today, which you unfortunately probably will, I really think you need to make peace with him.”

Phil stared at PJ for a few seconds. He huffed out a breath and nodded even though he had no plans of actually doing so, but didn’t say anything. He just took a deep breath as PJ knocked on the door, which almost instantly got ripped open by a tall guy with dark hair and a wild look in his eye.

“Hello,” he said with a wide grin. “Ready to get hammered beyond recovery and make some awful decisions?”

Phil stared at him in astonishment, but PJ just laughed. “Hey, Chris.”

“PJ, my boy, we must discuss what you will be doing once your princess arrives, yes?”

Phil could only watch as Chris threw an arm around PJ and pulled him inside, before quickly turning around and calling to Phil, “Future Friend, the alcohol is inside!”

PJ looked back at Phil apologetically, but Phil just laughed and closed the door. He followed them into the kitchen cautiously, already overwhelmed by the amount people in every room he could see. Nearly all of them had plastic cups. The music got louder, and Phil spotted an open door that led to a basement where the music was no doubt coming from.

“What’s your name?” Chris asked once Phil joined them again in the kitchen.

“Phil,” he replied. He let out a small huff as Chris swept him up into a tight hug that squeezed the breath out of him.

“Hello Phil, welcome to the party. You seem like you will be really silly when you’re drunk, and I’m excited to see that. Here,” he turned and poured something into a cup that matched the cups the other partygoers held and set it on the counter next to Phil. “Enjoy that, you know where to get more as you need it. I’d recommend you write your name on that, but once you put it down, that cup’s lost for good.”

PJ grabbed the cup thrust at him easily. “I’ll show him around, don’t worry Chris,” he said calmly.

“Perfect!” Chris replied, clapping both of them on the back. “I need to return to my post before anyone else shows up. Steve put me on door duty, that bloody arsehole.” He gave PJ a wet kiss on the cheek before leaving them to greet more guests.”

“Is he drunk?” Phil asked once he had collected himself.

“What?” PJ laughed. “Oh, no, that’s just how Chris is. I know he can be a lot, but he’s really sweet.” PJ smiled fondly at Chris, who they could see was already directing a group of girls towards the kitchen.

“He’s different from what I expected a house party host to be like,” Phil said thoughtfully.

“Oh, he’s just really close with the host, and really nice. Steve, the real host, is probably playing strip beer pong downstairs or something like that.”

Phil didn’t say anything, just knocked back his cup of mystery liquid and turned to get more. He immediately regretted it as the sour and bitter taste of Chris’ concoction hit the back of his throat. He really should’ve tested it before drinking the whole thing.

“Hey, slow down!” PJ rushed to say. “No need to get drunk, especially not on that shit. Chris is great, but he has the worst taste in alcoholic beverages.” PJ laughed. “Don’t tell him I said that though, he’s an aspiring mixologist, he just makes shit drinks.”

“Don’t think I’ll get through the night sober,” Phil said darkly. “Especially if I’m supposed to confront my past or whatever you said.”

PJ sighed and pushed his own drink towards Phil. “At least drink this instead. It’s just beer, and it actually tastes decent. It’s not as strong, so I hope that it’ll at least stop you from blacking out five minutes in,” he said. “I’ve trained Chris to not try that mystery cocktail stuff on me anymore, don’t worry.”

Phil grabbed it reluctantly and took a cautious sip. It wasn’t great, but it was much better than the overwhelming taste of his previous drink. He watched as PJ poured himself another drink, noting how many bottles of alcohol there were. He was surprised that a bunch of underage kids had access to so much, but he supposed it wasn’t as hard as he thought it was. He and PJ had beer together before, after all.

“Let’s go into the living room, yeah?”

Phil nodded and followed PJ into the living room. They took a seat on the couch that was surprisingly lacking in people. He assumed most people had migrated to the main attraction in the basement.

“I’ll try to stick with you once Sophie shows up, I really want you to meet her and I don’t want to abandon you,” PJ said.

“Don’t worry about it, I’ll just explore while you guys catch up, maybe find a desperate girl or whatever guys are supposed to do at these,” he replied.

“Just at least try to have fun, ok? And if _he_ gives you a hard time, text me and I’ll be there in an instant.”

Phil just nodded and tried for a smile. He knew soon enough, PJ would get distracted by Sophie, and Phil wasn’t going to stand in his way. Not even a few minutes later, PJ was pulling out his phone and staring excitedly at it. 

“Chris just texted. Sophie’s here!” He said happily.

“Ok, you better go find her then,” Phil said lightly.

PJ stood up, but he hesitated. “Will you be fine?”

“Oh my god, yes. Go, find your girlfriend!” Phil said with a laugh.

“She’s not my girlfriend—”

“Go!” Phil said, pushing PJ away.

PJ smiled at him gratefully and rushed out of the living room.

Phil sighed and sipped at his drink. He felt awkward just sitting there alone, so he decided to explore the actual party and at least pretend that he belonged. Trying to slow his racing heart, he took a few breaths and walked towards the basement door. He took a big sip of his drink, hoping to achieve the pleasant buzz of tipsiness quickly and gain some courage, and walked down the beige carpeted stairs.

He rounded the bend and was instantly met with a dimly lit room filled with teens swaying in the section of the basement deemed the dance floor, making out on the couch, and playing beer pong as PJ had said before. It was overwhelming. It wasn’t nearly as bad as Phil had feared, but in a way, it was also much worse than he had hoped.

Phil turned and walked next to the wall, always making sure to keep it at most a foot away from his shoulder. He looked around with the naive hope that he would find someone familiar to distract him for a bit. His wish was granted when he felt a weight being thrown against his shoulder and a familiar voice calling his name.

“Ohmygod Phiiiiil!”

Phil turned to Louise just in time to catch her. She was clearly already very drunk since she was practically falling over. “Hey, Louise. Uh, let’s go sit down, ok?” Phil instantly went to support her around the waist so he could carry her away from the noise and somewhere safer.

“No! Nononono Phil. I’m fine! Never been better,” she giggled, and once she finally calmed down, she turned back to Phil with wide eyes and said, “Dan wants to talk to you!”

Phil stared down at her in confusion. “What?”

“Yeah, he’s been saying it, like, all week. He wants to—wants to talk to you!”

Phil just shook his head. He gently pushed Louise towards a corner of the basement farthest from the dancing teens and started to sit her down. She pulled away suddenly and turned around.

“I’ll go find him!”

“No, Louise, don’t—” Phil started to say, but she was already too far to be able to hear him over the music, or she just chose to ignore him. Phil contemplated going after her, but he didn’t want to awkwardly push through the throng of people to get to where he saw her run off to.

He sighed, running a hand through his fringe nervously. He was worried for her safety, seeing as she was so very clearly drunk, but in the end, he decided that she was safe enough and turned to go back up the stairs. Whatever was about to go down, he didn’t want any part of it.

He managed to climb the first half of the stairs, but he stupidly turned around when he heard Louise call his name again. She was tugging on Dan’s arm and they seemed to be arguing. They were still a good distance away, so Phil couldn’t hear them, but he could see what was happening clearly enough. 

He was about to turn back around and flee the scene, but then Louise gestured frantically towards Phil which caused Dan to turn his head, and suddenly they were making eye contact and Phil was frozen in place.

It lasted just a few seconds, but it left Phil feeling hot all over. Dan moved as if he was about to move towards Phil. That snapped Phil out of his daze, who quickly turned back around and went back to the ground floor as fast as he could without seeming too suspicious.

“Phil.”

It was Dan’s voice, it was directed at him, and Phil felt like he would break down right then and there. How dare Dan do this? They weren’t supposed to interact, they weren’t friends, they were _done_ and it wasn’t fair of Dan to try to talk to Phil now, four years and plenty of tears later.

“Phil!” Dan said, this time closer than before.

Phil felt a hand grab his wrist and tug gently, as if Dan, too, was a little afraid of what would happen next. He turned around slowly, eyes trained on his black converse, too reluctant to look up.

“Phil,” Dan repeated. He said it softly this time, almost inaudible over the music that Phil could still hear booming from the basement.

Phil slowly looked up until he was looking Dan in the eyes once again and his breath hitched. They were both silent for a moment. Dan seemed to be studying Phil closely, and he couldn’t stop himself from doing the same with Dan.

They were stood just a few feet apart, and that close up, Phil could make out each of Dan’s beauty spots. There was a rosy patch on his cheek, and his long fringe was messed up. Phil had to fight the urge to reach out and fix it.

Finally, Phil remembered how to speak. “What?” he managed to say weakly.

“I—I, uh. I’m sorry.”

Phil stared at him in silence. He looked down at where Dan was still loosely holding his wrist. Dan pulled away quickly, as if just then remembering that he was even doing that.

“I should go—”

“Can we talk?” Dan blurted out. “Please,” he added softly.

“Fine,” Phil said simply. He glanced down at his cup, which he noticed was empty. He didn’t recall finishing it off.

Dan looked at Phil’s cup too. “Let’s go get something to drink,” He said.

Phil just nodded and followed Dan back into the kitchen. His heart was racing and his brain seemed to have decided that he was incapable of talking anymore. He hated that Dan still had this effect on him. He hated the unwarranted feeling of butterflies in his stomach, the way his wrist still tingled where Dan had reached out to touch him, and the probably obvious blush he could feel on his face. He hoped that last one could be passed off as him being tipsy. He probably was, anyway. He wasn’t much of a drinker, and he assumed PJ would label him a lightweight.

“What do you want?” Dan asked.

“Uh, I don’t really care,” Phil replied.

Dan nodded as if he understood. “Not much of a drinker?”

Phil shook his head. Dan smirked and took Phil’s empty cup, pouring a few things in before passing it back. He took a sip, surprised that it actually tasted good.

“Not bad, right?” Dan said with a small smile. “It’s really sweet, but still full of alcohol, so be careful.”

Phil nodded and observed as Dan made himself something different. Dan took a small sip, and seeming satisfied, led Phil up the stairs to the second floor.

“Where are we going?” Phil asked curiously. He realized that he should’ve asked this sooner, but he trusted Dan enough to not lead him to his death, even if he shouldn’t have been placing so much faith in him.

“Kevin’s room. I hope you don’t mind, I should’ve asked sooner, sorry. I just wanted us to talk somewhere a little more private.”

Phil didn’t know who Kevin was, but he didn’t really care. He was too busy staring at Dan. He was walking a little behind Dan, and he could clearly see Dan’s profile from that angle. He noticed that Dan had silver square earrings on. He hadn’t noticed that Dan had pierced ears before and he wondered when that had happened.

“Let’s go in here, ok?”

Phil followed Dan into a dark room. Dan turned on a small lamp and walked towards the other side of the room, where he threw open the doors to a balcony. He turned back with a small and tentative smile, silently asking Phil to join him. Up in the room, the music was just a low thump of the bass. There was an inviting warm glow coming from the lamp. The setting was calming, and it put Phil at ease.

Phil followed Dan onto the balcony. The air was warm and had a sweet tinge to it, which Phil quickly realized was coming from the flowers below the small balcony. He scanned the view. In the darkness, he could make out a pool with a soft glow.

“Wow,” Phil gasped, “this property is huge!”

Dan laughed breathily. “The family’s loaded. Can’t figure out why they didn’t send the kids to some expensive boarding school.’

Dan closed one of the two balcony doors and sat down, leaning against it. He gestured for Phil to do the same, and suddenly, he remembered why they were there. The tension returned as Phil fell out of the familiarity he and Dan had momentarily shared again. He sat down next to Dan and made sure to leave plenty of room between them.

“You wanted to talk?” Phil asked quietly after a beat of silence.

“Oh. Yeah.” Dan looked up at Phil sadly, but Phil couldn’t hold the eye contact again.

He looked straight ahead and downed about a quarter of his new drink. He was feeling loose from all of the alcohol he had consumed in the last hour. “What about?”

“Sorry Louise bothered you about it, I didn’t really plan on this happening tonight…” Dan stared at his drink for a moment. “I’m just...I’m really sorry about everything that happened, Phil. I was an ass. I treated you poorly, and I regret it.”

“Why’d you do it?” Phil asked softly. Phil could see Dan staring at him in surprise from the corner of his eye.

“What?”

He turned to Dan. “Why did you do it?” Phil repeated, voice stronger now. “Why did you shut me out?”

“I can’t say,” Dan replied.

“That’s not how it works!” Phil turned so he was completely facing Dan. “You don’t just walk around treating people like shit and not even try to justify it! You said you regret it, yet you can’t even tell me why you acted the way you did?” Phil was nearly shouting. He took a deep breath to calm down, followed by another mouthful of the drink.

“I really don’t think I can tell you. Fuck, I’m sorry Phil, ok?” Dan said, voice not as loud as Phil’s had been, but matching him in intensity.

“Dan, you must realize how it all seemed to me. I fucking _came out_ to you and less than a week later you suddenly decide to get all cozy with the same people who were bothering you! By the way, I _defended you_ when they were talking shit to your face if you forgot.”

“I didn’t stop hanging out with you because of...that. Please, you have to believe me, Phil.” Dan’s voice had gone soft again and it cracked on Phil’s name. “You were my best friend, something like that would never have changed my view of you. I’m—I’m not homophobic.”

“I should go. This was a mistake.” Phil went to get up, but Dan’s hand quickly wrapped around his arm to stop him.

“Please, Phil. I was young and stupid, and I’m still young, but I hope I’m less stupid now. Shutting you out was the biggest mistake of my life. I don’t know what to say to make you believe me.”

Phil settled back down and stared at Dan. He seemed distraught. His eyes were shining with unshed tears as they looked intensely into Phil’s, and at that moment, he felt like he was looking at the real Dan.

“I do believe you,” Phil replied softly, and he really did. He knew he was being stupid, but after all those years, he still wanted to do everything in his power to make sure Dan never cried.

Dan set his cup down in front of him and launched himself at Phil. He wrapped his arms around Phil’s neck and buried his face into Phil’s shoulder. After the initial shock wore off, Phil carefully set his own cup down and wrapped his arms around Dan. It reminded him of a better time, and it shocked him that the hug was so familiarly comforting.

“Fuck,” Dan mumbled, pulling away abruptly. “Sorry, that was uncalled for. Can we just blame it on the alcohol?”

Phil smiled. He realized that he was probably on the brink of being drunk himself. He had consumed some really strong and questionable drinks in the last hour and a half, and he didn’t really drink often enough to be used to it, he couldn’t hold his liquor too well. “Yeah, definitely.”

Dan smiled back, but it quickly disappeared. “I’m sorry, but I have to ask. Do you forgive me?”

“I…” Phil stared at his drink that he was clutching between his hands. “I forgive you, but I don’t think I completely trust you. Yet.” He added the last word when he saw Dan’s face fall.

“Of course, yeah, that makes total sense,” Dan said hurriedly. He looked into his cup and then looked back up at Phil. “I need another drink. Do you want me to grab you anything?”

“I want to get fucking wasted. Can you just get me whatever’s strongest, please? I don’t care about the taste.”

Dan grinned evilly, nodded, and disappeared out of the room. Phil noted that he didn’t grab their plastic cups, but chose to just let Dan do his thing. He finished off his drink and stood up to get a better view of the backyard. It was huge and beautiful. Phil couldn’t help but wonder how Dan ever got involved with a group of people like this. They were all rich brats, and Dan just wasn’t.

Dan was sweet, and he was kind, and he remembered whenever Phil had told him the smallest thing about himself and would do nice things just because, and—

_and he was a dick._

Phil stepped back and sank down, resting his back against the glass wall of the sliding door. Yes, he accepted that Dan had really hurt him, but he was willing to move forwards like Dan was. He didn’t want to harbor that grudge for the rest of his life.

A minute later, Dan returned and stepped through the open door next to Phil. He was holding a nearly full bottle of vodka.

“That looks like a bad idea,” Phil warned, but he was smiling widely. He had said he wanted to get drunk, and it seemed Dan did too.

“This wasn’t easy to sneak away from the party, I had to do some mega sneaking to swipe a mostly full bottle,” Dan apologized as he sat down next to Phil.

Phil laughed. Dan poured them each half a cup before relaxing against the cool glass door to Phil’s right. Phil noticed that their shoulders were slightly touching, but it didn’t bother him. Dan started giggling, and it quickly turned to full-on laughter, but Phil just stared in confusion.

“What’s so funny?”

“Just thinking about—the time when we—thought the Sprite bottles were beer,” Dan managed to wheeze out between small fits of laughter.

Phil was confused until the memory came back to him. He burst out laughing too. “Oh my god, we were idiots! How old were we?”

“Nine!” Dan nearly shouted. “We were so stupid, how could we think those glass Sprite bottles were beer?”

“We were young and innocent,” Phil replied, “and it was dark. It was like ten, and we thought we were so slick finding those bottles in the fridge.”

They both laughed about the incident for a long time. With that one shared moment, all of the tension and awkwardness dissipated and they reminisced about their silly childhood antics. They drank a lot of the bottle of vodka, so if they weren’t drunk before, they were both definitely drunk by then. At some point, Dan rested his head on Phil’s shoulder.

For a moment, in their little bubble, it felt like the four years of radio silence had never happened. Even if it was just for an hour or two at some random party at some stranger’s house, Phil felt like they were best friends again. He knew it was dangerous. He knew they were both too wasted to be fully aware of their actions. He knew that their situation couldn’t just fix itself so quickly. None of that mattered to Phil at that moment. He was just enjoying Dan’s company. Phil, in his drunken state, was ready to accept Dan back into his life with open arms, fuck the pain and regret he knew he’d feel come morning.

There was a buzzing in Phil’s pocket that he barely registered. He pulled out his phone and turned it off. A thought at the back of his mind reminded him that it was probably PJ trying to reach him, but he didn’t care. He was warm and happy and refused to deal with any distractions.

Phil wasn’t sure just how much time passed, but eventually, Dan stirred. If he had fallen asleep, he had apparently woken up again. He reached out and rested his palm flat against Phil’s chest.

“I can feel your heartbeat,” he said quietly.

“Good to know I’m not dead,” Phil replied in an equally as quiet voice. A mood had settled that seemed to require soft voices and gentle touches, and Phil had no plans of disrupting it.

Dan shifted so he wasn’t resting all of his weight on Phil anymore. He gently picked up his discarded cup, but quickly grabbed the bottle once he noticed it was empty. He took a big swig and set it back down.

“Can’t be bothered with the cup anymore,” he said with a giggle.

Phil finished the last bit from his own cup and took a swig from the bottle. “Cups are for losers,” he replied.

Dan smiled widely at him. They passed the bottle between them for a few minutes, caught in a comfortable silence. Phil turned his body a little so he was slightly facing Dan rather than resting flush against the door. Dan mirrored his movements and settled his elbows on his crossed knees, hands cupping his cheeks.

“Don’t you want to join your friends downstairs?” Phil asked curiously.

Dan scoffed and let his arms fall limp in his lap. “Of course not! I hate parties, this is so much more fun.” He looked up at Phil through his eyelashes with a small smile.

“Then why do you go?”

The smile quickly fell from his face. “I have to. It’s what Jack wants and it’s in my best interest to do what Jack wants me to,” Dan replied quietly. There was a sad tinge to his voice, so Phil changed the subject to get that smile back.

“You really think this is more fun than partying downstairs?” Phil asked, voice getting even softer.

Dan leaned in. “Of course. Everything is more fun with you, Phil.”

Phil smiled and leaned in too to make up for their quiet voices. “I think everything is more fun with you too, Dan.”

Dan stared at him with tired eyes that reflected the soft glow from the light in the room. With the light, Phil could see that Dan’s cheeks were a slight rosy tint. His eyes traveled down and he saw that Dan was biting his lower lip. Phil watched as Dan slowly released his plump lip, and when he snapped his eyes back up, he was pleased to see that Dan was no longer looking into his eyes either. Phil subconsciously pressed his lips together before letting his mouth open slightly to exhale the breath he didn’t realize he had been holding.

“Phil?” Dan asked. His eyes stayed focused on Phil’s lips.

“Yeah?” Phil breathed out. He tilted his head slightly and leaned a little closer. They were still sat next to each other, so the angle was a little awkward since they were leaning across their knees.

“Can I—”

Dan never got to ask whatever question he had, because, at that moment, the door burst open and two figures walked in.

“—Goes up here sometimes. Dan? You up here, buddy?”

Phil quickly leaned away from Dan, even scooting back to put a couple of feet of room between them. His legs were pulled up against his chest, and he suddenly felt very out of place. Dan was staring into the room in horror, back suddenly pin straight.

“Yeah, Chris. We’re out on the balcony,” Dan called out weakly.

“Oh, so you’re with Phil, then?” Chris asked. He walked over to the open door and peered out before spinning back around to say something to the other figure.

Phil saw that the second person was PJ and immediately stiffened. He sprang to his feet, and once the world stopped spinning, he wobbled back into the room over to PJ, who quickly wrapped an arm around his waist.

“Oh, fuck. Are you drunk?” PJ asked worriedly.

Phil just nodded.

“Fuck, I was looking all over for you. Why aren’t you answering your phone? I texted and called you like a million times!”

Phil frowned. He wondered why he didn’t recall this, then remembered he had turned his phone off. “What time is it?”

“It’s like two in the morning, thought you’d want to leave early since this isn’t your scene—Phil! Don’t avoid the question!” PJ was frantically pulling at his hair, and if he didn’t look ready to snap, Phil might have laughed.

“Phone’s off, sorry. Was up here with Dan—”

“Dan?” PJ asked in surprise. He looked behind Phil, seeming to finally notice Dan. Phil looked back and saw that he was awkwardly standing just inside the room with the bottle of vodka and their forgotten cup held in his hands. He shifted the items around to free his left hand and closed the balcony door before walking over to Chris and saying to no one in particular, “Chris and I should leave, we’ll leave you to it.”

Just before Dan walked out of the room, he turned around and looked right at Phil. “Bye Phil,” he said softly, “see you in English on Monday.”

“Yeah, see you,” Phil managed to reply weakly. He watched as Dan and Chris walked out of the room in awe.

“What the fuck?” PJ exclaimed.

“What?”

PJ just shook his head and rushed Phil down the stairs and out the door.

“How’s Sophie?” Phil mumbled as he struggled to keep up with PJ’s fast pace.

“Fine, great, she left half an hour ago. Phil, I was worried. What the fuck were you doing with Dan?”

“What?” Phil huffed. “You told me to talk to him!”

“Yeah, I meant to settle some things so you can go to school without looking like a kicked puppy every time we pass him in the halls. I didn’t mean for you to get drunk on a balcony with mood lighting and make out!”

Phil pulled away from PJ and groaned, a wave of nausea overcoming him. “I’m too drunk for this conversation,” Phil managed to say.

PJ rubbed his back until Phil could stand again. “Ok, you’re right. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow,” Phil repeated. “For the record, we didn’t.”

“What?”

“We didn’t make out.”

“Ok,” PJ said. “You just got drunk together on a balcony in a stranger’s house, with the guy who literally destroyed your heart when you were—”

“Peej,” Phil groaned.

“Right, sorry. Tomorrow.”

They walked back to PJ’s house mostly in silence after that. It took longer than the journey to the party had, but PJ just patiently matched Phil’s stride and supported some of his weight without complaint. Once they finally snuck back to the window PJ had left open, PJ climbed through first and helped Phil get in without too much trouble.

The journey up the stairs was painfully slow, but there were two creaky steps that PJ wanted them to watch out for and Phil was too drunk to not trip on the steps if he wasn’t careful. He was ready to finally collapse onto his side of the bed after pushing away the blankets PJ had used to create the fake him.

He was already in his pajama pants and pulling the shirt PJ had lent him off when PJ whisper shouted, “Phil, you need to take out your contacts!”

He would be grateful when the next morning his eyes weren’t burning, but he just glared at PJ as he made his way to the door and stumbled to the bathroom. He returned, pulled out his glasses from his bag to set on the nightstand, and crawled into bed.

PJ forced him to sit up and take a few sips from a water bottle that he had brought up. Reluctantly, Phil did so before pulling the covers up and lying down. At last, Phil could sleep, although a stressed out PJ forced him to lay on his side.

“If you throw up, I don’t want you choking and dying while I’m asleep. Also, I’d rather you throw up on the wooden floor than on my sheets,” PJ said sheepishly.

Phil just rolled over with a sigh, memories from just an hour before going through his half-awake brain, a single sentence returning every now and then.

_Everything is more fun with you, Phil._

❁ ❁ ❁

It couldn’t have been more than an hour or two later, but Phil wasn’t sure since he didn’t get the chance to check. He was woken up by the pain in his stomach, or maybe it was PJ’s snoring that woke him up. He wasn’t too sure, but either way, he was glad that he had enough time to register when the pain turned to nausea. Phil stood up, hastily put his glasses on, and hurried to the bathroom.

The moment he reached the bathroom, he felt the sharp pain of bile rising in his throat and collapsed over the toilet. He hovered over the toilet as he was hit by a second wave of nausea. Once it felt safe enough to move, he flushed the toilet and shakily made his way to the sink after finally closing the door. He didn’t turn on a light, fearing that the sudden brightness would cause him to throw up again.

Surely, he couldn’t be hungover already. He was no expert, but he was convinced that he shouldn’t feel so awful so soon after drinking. Phil let out a quiet huff and leaned over the sink to rinse out his mouth. He looked up and made eye contact with himself in the mirror. He could barely make anything out in the dark, but the moonlight shining through the window cast enough of a subtle glow to let Phil make out his features.

Suddenly, his vision blurred. Phil braced his arms on the sink, worried he was about to faint, but he didn’t feel dizzy. He was actually starting to feel fine, except for the fact that his line of vision had also widened. The room got lighter, and the deep red of his pajama pants seemed to dull into a light brown.

“Shit,” Phil muttered under his breath. “No. No, stop, not now.”

This was an all too familiar experience for Phil. He was about to shift forms, and his vision was always the first thing to change. He groaned and sank to his knees, leaning against the tub and just waiting for the feeling he was expecting to come and pass.

Once it finally came, it hit him like a train. The wave of nausea crashed over him hard enough to knock him over, and while lying on his side with his legs pulled up against his chest, the prickling sensation he had gotten used to over the years started spreading across his skin.

His vision darkened for a moment, then returned, but his view was from a slightly lower angle than before.

_Fuck._

Phil stood up on four shaking legs and hopped up onto the counter. Staring back at him was a black cat, just as he had feared. This wasn’t normal, but his still slightly intoxicated brain wouldn’t process that. He knew that he wasn’t supposed to randomly shift forms, but he was far too tired to pay that much attention to the situation. He just wanted to go to sleep.

_It’s just because I got stupidly drunk,_ Phil reasoned with himself.

He hadn’t unwillingly shifted in eight years, and that was concerning, but he just hopped back down and concentrated on changing back. He shut his eyes and cleared his mind, imagining himself turning back into his human form. Once the prickling heat had come and gone, he opened his eyes again and stared down his reflection.

“You changed back, there’s nothing to worry about,” he murmured to himself. “That was just a side effect of drinking from that bottle of vodka. Just don’t do it again, and you’ll be fine.”

He ran his hands through his hair a few times and rubbed at his eyes before leaving the dark bathroom to return to PJ’s room. He chugged down the rest of the water bottle PJ had forced him to drink from earlier and crawled back under the covers, telling himself over and over that everything would be fine. He was fine. He was definitely fine.

Right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dnp finally interact properly!! And it only took like 15k words lol also the actual plot of the story is finally kicking in. See? The shape-shifting isn't forgotten!


	5. Chapter Four: Dan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, the last chapter went up on July 23rd. Yes, it is now September 22nd (at 11:30 pm, good job Vicky). I have excuses though. First I had writer's block then I went on family vacation then I had to move then I started school then I got sick then school got hard. and this chapter is only 4k so I'm really just awful at everything oops. ENJOY.

Dan felt warm. Yes, it was mostly because he was really fucking tabled, and partly because it was a summer night. There was also the hot breath of the boy sat in front of him that he could feel on his face.

But he was also warm on the inside, which was a peculiar yet somehow vaguely familiar feeling. It was a feeling he hadn’t felt in years, but he never wanted it to stop. It made him happy and he wanted to giggle like a little kid. His eyes met ocean blue ones and he leaned in a little, because why not? It was an easy action that he could do. His gaze lingered on soft, inviting lips for a moment. He wondered what it would feel like to have those lips on his.

He figured he didn’t have to wonder too much if he didn’t want to, it seemed like they were getting closer, inviting him to get closer too, so he leaned in some more with the intent to meet them in the middle.

Then, a loud noise caused his eyes to snap open—he hadn’t even noticed that they fluttered shut for the shortest of moments—and he pulled his gaze away from intoxicating blue to the bedroom door.

There was someone else in the room.

The peaceful ambience of their private balcony had been ruined when the bedroom door swung open to reveal two tall figures. Dan could only watch as Chris came barreling into the room with PJ following close behind. Phil pulled away abruptly, putting space between them that had definitely not been there before. Dan knew he had to do the same, even if he was reluctant to do so. He scooted back and watched as Phil turned away and went inside.

His cheeks burned and his heart was pounding as if he had been caught doing something incredibly embarrassing. Dan pulled himself up and tried to erase any evidence of their presence on the balcony before joining the rest in the bedroom. His heart was racing and he couldn’t slow it down. What had just happened? Arguably more importantly, what would have happened if they weren’t interrupted?

He felt trapped in a daze that only broke with a sharp look from PJ. He didn’t know what the group had been discussing, but he could tell that he had managed to fuck up again. Not interested in finding out what PJ held against him this time, he left with Chris once an appropriate moment presented itself.

_Idiot._

Dan scrubbed a hand down his face and rushed down the stairs to the empty kitchen to dispose of the cursed bottle of vodka. There was still half left and he knew that it would be gone soon enough if he didn’t get rid of it as soon as possible. He didn’t completely know what had just happened, but he did know he didn’t want to think about it. He just knew things had gone too far too fast and this time it was all his fault.

He just got Phil back. He couldn’t let himself throw that all away over one drunken decision.

“Chris, what the fuck?” Dan exclaimed angrily after Chris, who was walking out of the kitchen. He was desperately trying to slow his racing heart, but he wasn’t completely sure what was causing the rapid beating to begin with.

“Uh, sorry, mate!” Chris called over his shoulder. “I heard you went upstairs with Phil and PJ said he really needed to find him—”

The cold sharpness of dread settled in Dan’s chest as he followed after Chris. “Who said I was with Phil?” His voice sounded too strained and too high, even to him.

Chris paused and turned back to Dan with a strange look. “Just some girls. They were up here just a moment ago, probably in the basement by now.” Chris shrugged and flashed Dan an easy smile. “Said they wanted to talk to Jack.”

Dan glared at Chris and rushed to the stairs that led to the basement, eager to get to the heart of the party and track down those girls. He wasn’t sure what he was going to tell them, but he knew that he had to make sure they didn’t have the wrong idea. The only coherent thought in his muddled brain was that he couldn’t let Jack hear about it, or who knew what he’d say or do.

Dan didn’t know who the girls were and didn’t care to learn, as long as everything was cleared up before the night’s end. He quickly spotted a group of clearly drunk girls hanging out with Jack and his crew and tried his luck.

“Hey, mate!” Jack called out once Dan was close enough to hear.

“Hey,” Dan replied warily.

“So Brianna here was saying she saw you go upstairs with someone earlier,” Jack said with a suggestive wink. ”Been up there a while, too, I see.”

Dan sighed, relieved that he found the girls so easily and that no one seemed to know the identity of the ‘someone’ he was with. “Oh, nah, it wasn’t like that,” Dan said with a smirk, trying for a laidback laugh. “I was just helping out a mate. He was pretty pissed and I was just leading him to a quiet bathroom in case he sicked up after all the booze he had.” The lie came easily enough to Dan, even in his frantic state.

“Aw, how sweet of you!”

Dan looked over to the girl who had spoken. She was tall and blonde and seemed to be significantly less intoxicated than her three friends. She was objectively gorgeous, Dan couldn’t deny that. Yet, he was less than pleased when she rushed to his side and linked their arms together.

“Just doing my best to preserve the integrity of the furniture here,” Dan replied with another laugh.

The girl on his arm smiled up at him. Dan noticed the way her cleavage was pushed up by her red tank top and quickly looked away. He knew what she was doing, and he really wasn’t in the mood.

“Sweet, sexy, _and_ funny? That’s rare with guys these days.” The girl sighed and rested her head on Dan’s forearm.

Dan laughed stiffly, but made no effort to encourage her. His arm stayed against his side, but she clung on like a sloth. “Not really,” Dan said in an attempt to disinterest her. He wasn’t even sure which part of her statement he was denying.

“Either way, you check all the boxes. You seem like someone who is easy to get along with.” She smiled up at Dan hopefully.

Dan ignored how his brain conjured up an image of a certain blue-eyed someone at that description. He needed to stop thinking about other people and concentrate on who was there, with him, and wanting to be with him. He didn’t care for this girl at all, but what was wrong with a little acting? He just needed to play the kind of role that everyone expected him to play to eliminate suspicion, then just slip away. Dan smirked down at her. “What’s your name?”

“Jessica,” she purred in his ear.

“Brianna and I are gonna go dance for a bit, ‘kay?” Jack called out, but he was already walking away as Brianna pulled him to the other side of the spacious room.

Dan saw that the other two girls had run off somewhere, leaving Dan alone with Jessica on the outskirts of the basement. Jessica was still leaning into him as she drank from her cup, and Dan took a moment to study her more. He knew that she was pretty, at least objectively. Any guy at the party would want her if she chose one of them, but she had chosen Dan. Was it because he was friends with Jack? He wasn’t sure.

He listened to her babble on about her friends and the _totally amazing_ party they threw her the previous weekend for her seventeenth birthday. Dan took in a deep breath. She was pretty. She was desirable. She was nice. There was no reason for him to deny her. She was the one he should want. It shouldn’t take much to put him in the right mood, after all.

“What school do you go to?”

Jessica looked up, looking startled by the sudden interruption. Dan smiled widely once she replied, glad to hear that she lived a good hour away and definitely would never run into him again.

Dan laced their fingers together and gently pulled Jessica to a less occupied corner. He sat down in an old and comfortable chair and gestured for her to do the same. Instead of sitting in the other chair, she sat on the arm of the chair Dan was occupying, and instantly continued her story.

Dan would be lying if he said he knew what Jessica was talking about. He was zoned out, trying to list things that he liked about girls while Jessica continued to talk about her birthday. She talked _a lot_ , which didn’t help Dan at all.

“Dan? Dan!”

Dan looked up at her with wide eyes. “What?”

“You’re not even listening, are you?” She asked accusingly with a pout.

“Sorry, I’m just a bit distracted.”

“Oh, really?” Jessica smirked down at him. “And what’s so distracting?”

Dan stared in confusion until Jessica’s interpretation of his words dawned on him. Well. That was definitely not what he meant, but he’ll take what he can get. Making sure she could see it happen, Dan let his eyes drag over her body before meeting her eyes again with a smirk of his own.

“You.”

Jessica leaned over him, her breath tickling his ear. “Mm, and what are you gonna do about that?”

Dan cupped her face and brought her close to his. “Distractions can be pretty good, don’t you think? I could really use one right now.”

Jessica leaned in to close the small space between them, and then they were kissing. Dan wasn’t too sure when he had ended up in the position, but suddenly she was placing her cup on the table and sitting in his lap with her thighs bracketing his and her arms loosely wrapped around his neck.

“I think I can manage that.”

Dan let himself get lost in the feel of her lips and the weight of her body pressing down on his. This was good. It wasn’t awful, really. Against his better judgement, he mind began to wander. How did he do on that English exam? He was worried he bombed it. Well, he didn’t have the great tutor he had depended on when he was younger. Speaking of, how did he do on his exam? Phil was always really good at English—

“How far do you want to go?” Dan blurted out.

“Did you drive here?” Jessica asked in place of an answer.

“No, I got a ride. I live pretty far,” Dan replied with an apologetic smile. Another lie. He lived a five minute walk away, but he didn’t want to bring her home, especially since he walked to the party with Louise and would be walking her home. It was wrong on so many levels.

“That’s fine, I drove. I’m the sober friend tonight.” She laughed loudly. “At least, I’m supposed to be!”

Dan laughed along with her and grabbed her hand in his, lacing their fingers together, ignoring the returning dread that he felt in his stomach. “Did you park close?”

Jessica bit her lip and nodded. She stood up and led him up the stairs and out of the house onto the front lawn. “It’s right here,” she said in a sultry voice as she gestured to a red car parked right under a tree at the edge of the front lawn.

Dan let her pull him towards the car, and then into the backseat once she unlocked the car. Surprisingly quickly, she was on top of him with her thighs framing him once more and her mouth attached to his. She eagerly pulled at his shirt until he let her pull it off.

Dan pressed his hands to her hips, where her shirt was hiked up to reveal a sliver of tanned skin. She gasped against his lips. Dan chased after her lips again before descending to her neck, sucking hard as she let out a high-pitched moan.

It felt too wrong.

It never really felt right, if he was being honest with himself, but as the unfamiliar pair of hands started running up and down his chest in a sickeningly familiar fashion, Dan realized he felt nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Other than the clear desire that presented itself below the belt the way it seemed to for all teenage boys, he was just waiting for the experience to reach that all too short moment of pure ecstasy to forget what was bothering him before dumping him back in his everlasting slump. And he was pretty sure that was not how most teenage boys felt when an objectively attractive girl was undoing the belt of their jeans and rubbing them through the fabric of their underwear.

Jessica pulled away and reached over the front seats to the glove compartment. She returned with a silver packet in her hand and tossed it to Dan. Then, she was pulling off her tank top and pulling Dan up into a sitting position and reconnecting their lips.

Dan took that as his cue to take control. It wasn’t much later that he found himself with Jessica underneath him as he desperately tried to reach his high, and once he did, he was quick to get it all over with and put the experience behind him.

At last, he was able to pull his clothes back on and stumble out of the car, leaving a blissed out Jessica to collect herself. He tried to subtly stretch out his back until it cracked in an attempt to undo the damage of being too tall for such a small car. He felt dirty.

He felt wrong.

Dan was startled out of his thoughts when someone called out a simple, “Hey!”

Dan walked over to who had called out to him. It was his friend Andrew, leaning against his car with a joint held loosely in his hand. “Bold of you to smoke that on the front lawn out in the open,” Dan quipped.

Andrew laughed heartily. “Not like anyone will see me in the dark. Anyway, saw you get out of that car.” He raised an eyebrow suggestively. “Did you fuck her?”

Dan held back his surprise at the forwardness of the question. “Uh, yeah.”

“Ayyy.” He reached out his hand for a high five that Dan reluctantly returned. Andrew always left Dan feeling uneasy, even if he was one of the more polite friends in the circle he ran with. As their conversation progressed, it got harder and harder to ignore the feeling that he had done something wrong that had followed Dan out of the car. Dan laughed at what he assumed was a joke, but he was starting to space out again.

“Hey, you ok bro?” Andrew didn’t wait for a response, just handed his blunt to Dan.

He accepted it without a word.

“How’s the year been treating you so far?” Andrew asked.

“Pretty shit, really. Rough week. Took an English exam today and honestly don’t know how it went, just praying I pass.” Dan let out a boisterous laugh. “Tryouts for field hockey happened, too—” Dan looked down at the blunt and handed it back.

“Shit, forgot they run drug tests on the players. Sorry, mate.”

Dan let out an empty laugh. “I doubt they’ll be testing us so soon, we still have weeks of practice before any real game.”

They spoke for a few minutes before Dan excused himself and went to find Louise, who was drunkenly swaying to the music in the basement with her friend Zoe.

“Danny, come join us!” Zoe called out as Louise pulled him over.

“No, I can’t, I’m actually heading home.” Dan was feeling increasingly uncomfortable and feared that the slight tremor in his voice was all too noticeable.

“What?” Louise squawked obliviously. “We just got here!”

“No, we’ve been here for hours, and I really gotta get home now. I don’t want you to walk home alone, though.”

“Dan, I’ll be fine!” Louise said loudly.

“Hey, don’t worry about it. I’m already driving two of my friends home, I can drive her too,” Zoe said with a calm smile.

“Uh…”

“Don’t worry, I haven’t had a drop of alcohol tonight.”

“Ok, thanks so much. I would walk her back but I just—I can’t be here right now.” Dan pushed his hair back from his face with a huff.

“Are you okay?” Zoe asked worriedly.

“Yeah, fine. I’m fine. Everything’s fine. I just can’t be here right now—” Dan looked around with worry. He wasn’t sure who he was looking for, not even sure if he wanted to see the person or not.

“Yeah, yeah go ahead then. I promise she’ll get home safe.”

Dan nodded “Thanks, uh. Bye Louise. Text me when you get home.” He gave Louise a hug. “Please make sure she texts me,” he said to Zoe.

“Bye Danny!” Louise hollered over the music.

He pulled away quickly, suddenly all too aware of what had occurred just before he came back inside. He felt like Louise could tell, and he knew she wouldn’t approve, maybe even view him with disgust. He was starting to view himself with disgust, but for a different reason.

He spun around and rushed outside, hoping the lack of music would make the thumping in his head go away. It did not.

He was out on the street without another word to anyone, and then he was running, the need to put on different clothes and get into bed too strong. He was wearing a letterman jacket that felt wrong, his straightened to perfection hair felt wrong, it all just felt too much and _wrong_ and he wanted it to stop.

He hated that he suddenly felt like he didn’t belong in his own skin. It had all started with the start of the school year, ever since first period when he—

_Fuck._

Dan stumbled to a halt and slumped to the ground to side on the curb.

“Fuck.” He breathed the word into the otherwise silent night.

The thump of his heart matched the throbbing of his headache. A loud bark caused him to jump and he turned to his left, where a dog was running through the side door of a dimly lit home. The dog ran into the backyard, leaving Dan to feel truly alone on the street.

He looked to his right. There was a dark house across the street from him where a family was probably soundly asleep. The top left window had a slight blue glow behind the curtain. Maybe a teen girl secretly talking to her boyfriend, or a kid that needed to turn on a nightlight to stop the nightmares. All normal things, really.

Dan craved the calm energy the house had. He just wanted to carry on with his life. He was fine, he was content, and he was finally respected, no, _loved_ by the student body. Did it matter that he didn’t deserve any of it? That he only had everything because of who he hung out with? No.

Sure, he was a dick, a fact that had sadly become clear to Dan recently, and his friends were all disrespectful little shits just worried about when they could get high again and fuck some pretty girl. It was true that Jack pretty much molded Dan into the playboy he was like he was a lump of clay. Dan was not who he would be with other influences, but that was true for everyone.

“Argh!” Dan threw his jacket to the ground and shoved his face into his hands.

He was different before all of this. He was different before Jack. _He was different before he shut out Phil._

It wasn’t fair for Phil to just show up and remind him of who he once was. The version of him that Jack made him become was a version of himself that was great at two different sports, and that could get him a scholarship. Jack pretty much gave him a scholarship, right? Yes, he was setting himself up for success this way. He did well in all of his classes and just struggled a bit in English, but it was whatever.

But Phil was the best friend he always wanted, other than Louise. Dan loved her more than he had ever loved any girl, which said a lot, but she couldn’t always relate to him the way Phil did. Phil made him feel happier than he ever felt, and Phil never made fun of him. He even wanted to protect him. But Phil was also the reason Dan got fucked over.

Phil was gay, and that was fine. But Dan wasn’t gay and there were people in the world that had a problem with gay people and it was just self preservation to not want to be associated with that. Not when Jack took any chance to pick on Dan.

Dan gingerly picked up his jacket and ran a finger across the stitching. He felt like he had to choose between Phil and everyone else. Phil, who he had just mended things with. And for what? Why? To ease his guilty conscience? To be friends?

Dan was playing a dangerous game. Even with so much alcohol still infiltrating Dan’s system, he was fully aware of what had gone down. He had leaned into Phil so easily. Phil was just so warm, and he smelled nice, and his hair was so soft, and his eyes, those fucking eyes that made his breath hitch and reminded Dan of the sky on a warm summer day— 

“No!”

Dan stood up and walked quickly while trying to control his breathing. No, this was not happening. He needed to forget what happened and hope that Phil was drunk enough to forget too.

But how could he?

Leaning towards Phil was too easy, and it felt too natural. They got so close, their faces were inches apart, and then the moment was ruined.

But there was no moment, because Dan was drunk and everything is too easy while drunk, and emotions are amplified when you don’t have consequences to worry about—

Not amplified, no. He confused the feeling of being safe for something else. That was all.

But Phil made him feel things he had never felt before. He made Dan feel the one thing he wanted so badly to feel every time he was with some random girl. It was the missing connection— 

There wasn’t a connection. There couldn’t be a connection. He just felt the yearning for a friend that he missed dearly.

But Dan couldn’t just forget what he desired for so many years, no matter how hard he tried. There were so many times that he had woken up in a cold sweat because what he wanted so bad but feared so much had followed him into the damn dream world.

He just needed to find the right girl. He just needed to find the one girl that left his head spinning with the gentlest of kisses.

Dan stopped in front of his house. He had walked around the block three times, but he forced himself to go inside before he made it a fourth. There was no way he was going to fall asleep in the distressed state he was in, so he grabbed his headphones and he slipped into bed and found the loudest soundtrack that he could find, knowing it was one that Jack would look down on. At least he wouldn’t be able to hear himself think.

Once he could barely keep his eyes open, Dan removed the headphones and rolled over, falling asleep exhausted not for the first time that week.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am aiming to have another chapter ready in two weeks lol. Tell me what you think pretty please this is the only thing in my life keeping me sane right now. I am no where near happy with this, I feel like something that I intended to be such an important chapter turned out pretty shit, but if I don’t post it now this story might just end up abandoned. I’ll just rewrite it in the future maybe.


End file.
